


my hands (your bones)

by bakedgarnet



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: BPDG AU, F/F, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, bad pearl, detective garnet, mentioned amedot, rupphire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-09-09 08:18:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8883604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bakedgarnet/pseuds/bakedgarnet
Summary: Pearl is an activist for the rights of those without soulmates, Garnet is a detective trying to balance her love for a felon with the importance of her job, and the universe clearly just has a knack for causing chaos.





	1. Fate

In all honesty, Pearl should have seen this coming.

 

But, to be fair, she never intended to start a riot outside of City Hall at eight in the morning on a Tuesday.

 

A pair of round, blue eyes worriedly scanned the curvature of her graffiti across the towering, government owned wall and windows. She mentally scolded herself for not anticipating this outcome. Of course every Chicago citizen making their way through morning rush hour would see her decidedly controversial message on their way to work.

 

It was no surprise, she realized, that the impact she told herself she desired ended up backfiring in a way that was sure to make itself known very soon.

 

She pulled her hoodie tighter over short, downy hair and bounced in place for a few rough moments while she decided whether or not she should try to diffuse the situation. On one hand, if she was recognized, she could very well get severely injured by the throngs of furious rioters. On the other, she perhaps could scramble their attention enough to avoid any serious injuries to _more_ government property.

 

Then again: _Fuck the government._

 

The thought brought a giddy smile to her lips as she reread her message scrawled across City Hall with so much artistic flare that she couldn’t help but tell herself, “ _Damn_ , you’re good.”

 

_What good is the United States if there’s no freedom without a mate?_

 

The cold city wind violently whipped the visible short strands of her hair across her forehead as she scanned the bold, multi-color letters and elaborate lighting and shading she had spent hours on. Pearl made a mental note to remind herself to thank one of the movement’s organizers who works in City Hall for interfering with security monitoring while she tagged the building. Not to mention how she somehow got the streets blocked off to avoid any onlookers, a near impossible task.

 

She shook herself out as if to stay on track. Diffuse the situation, or watch it play out to protect herself? Pearl’s logical mind told her to get the fuck out of there— run and cope with the aftermath later. The moral part of herself, however, said to get her ass in the middle of those people and talk them down. Her heavy sigh came out as a puff of visible air as she took off running toward the quickly growing crowd.

 

Shouldering her way through people of all genders, races and sizes to get to the front proved to be terribly difficult the harder she tried. The offended yelling cut into her eardrums like needles to balloons and she tried to pull her hoodie even tighter the further she attempted to push through the masses.

 

While it may have been chilly outside, the proximity of everyone to each other paired with her exertion to make her way through had her breaking a sweat when she finally reached the front of the mob— right in front of her own handiwork.

 

Pearl cleared her throat.

 

“Hey!” The combined shouting and chatter drowned her voice out overwhelmingly, and with a determined shift in stance, she tried again.

 

“ _Excuse me!_ ”

 

Nothing.

 

“ _Everybody shut the fuck up!”_

 

That got most people’s attention. _Of course they don't hear you unless you're cursing at them._

 

Pearl chuckled a bit to herself while the silence of those closest to her slowly influenced the silence of most of the crowd.

 

“I understand that everyone is upset, but there is a constructive and rational way to deal with this frustration that does not involve the harm of anyone or anything! Please continue your journey to work or class and disperse from the area, thank you!” She shouted so that everyone could hear.

 

Pearl was met with reluctant muttering for a long moment until one voice shouted from the crowd.

 

“Aren't you that lady from the internet with all that ‘marriage rights for people without soulmates’ bullshit?”

 

Another voice piped up, this one startlingly deep and much closer to the front.

 

“My daughter reads that crap! What kind of message are you sending to our kids? Did you make that?” His meaty arm raised to the massive testament to equal rights above her head, spray painted by her own hand.

 

Her mouth opened and closed for seconds too long as she tried to figure out what to say that wouldn't send this crowd back into a witch hunt— until she realized _she_ was the witch and they were absolutely on to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she barely noticed another man running up on her, balled fist high in the air as it hurled toward her face. Pearl barely ducked before another leg was out catching her abdomen in a gut-churning kick.

 

Before she knew it, she was on the ground and curled into a fetal position, wishing more than anything that her hoodie had been thick enough to soften the blows coming from every direction.

* * *

Pearl wasn't sure how long it had been.

 

Maybe it had been hours, maybe ten minutes. All she knew was she tasted blood that could have been coming from her mouth, nose or both and that the constant attacks to her body were drastically lessening— not without residual pain, however.

 

A voice cut through the fog that had taken over her consciousness while she hung on by a single thread at the edge of it. Even as distorted as it was, it sounded melodious to her ringing ears. She held onto that voice for as long as she could, but mourned it when it slipped from her mental grasp just as she slipped into unconsciousness.

 

When Pearl next awoke, it was atop an astonishingly cushy couch surrounded by other furniture and four more walls she was entirely unfamiliar with. Blue eyes immediately shut once more against even the minimal lighting in the room. With an attempt at a deep breath, she quickly realized her ribs were not in the condition to house movements of her lungs that grand at the moment.

 

Head swimming, she tried to sit up. A hand on her shoulder gently pushed her back down, followed by a quiet series of shushes that somehow sent a feeling of lulling warmth down her pained bones.

 

Then she heard that voice. The one from before.

 

“Don't try and get up yet. They got you pretty good out there.”

 

Damn, she loved that voice.

 

Pearl hadn't noticed the British accent to it before— it was a pleasant surprise. She willed her eyes open once more, and though she squinted at the dim light, she was able to blearily make out a vague face until she blinked a few more times and her vision adjusted.

 

She first registered one deep, earthy brown eye and another blue one so pale it almost matched the bright, empty sky outside. The faint sunlight peeking through the window hit the brown one when she shifted, just enough to turn dark brown into gleaming hazel. Her dark skin seemed to glow with a highlight of gold where the afternoon light hit it.

 

This kind stranger’s curly hair was large and tightly coiled, her face clear and moisturized. She wore a pair of dark gray sweatpants with the Chicago Police Department emblem on the right of her hip. Her torso was covered by nothing but a fitted black tank top. Pearl let her eyes linger on the defined shape of her abs through the thin cloth for a few seconds too long.

 

“Where am I?” She rasped, voice scratchy with disuse.

 

“How long was I out?” She tried sitting up again, only for that same hand to softly lower her back down as she answered Pearl’s questions.

 

“You're in my living room. You’ve been unconscious for a while— it’s three in the afternoon.”

 

Blue eyes widened as she frantically scanned the rest of the room, suddenly disoriented by knowing how long she had been under. The flashing memories of thrown punches and kicks to her thin body came back in awful snapshots, and she closed her eyes again with a groan when she remembered the Chicago Police Department emblem on this unreasonably attractive woman’s sweatpants.

 

“I’m gonna get arrested, aren't I? I knew I’d end up in jail over this… I didn't even get to tell my followers what happened to me. Damn it, they're going to worry–”

 

“Pearl, I’m not taking you in!” The stranger finally cut off with a warm, throaty laugh and an amused smile.

 

_Seriously, who the hell are you? How do you know my—_

 

“What? Why not?” Pearl was too disoriented to ask anything else.

 

The pounding soreness in her entire body prevented much room to consider the English language.

 

“Well, for starters, there's that fifth amendment we have that roughly says one is not required by law to turn in our soulmate or soulmates for felonies.”  

 

Pearl’s eyes widened even more as they slowly shifted to rest on this woman with a voice like honey and a smile that put sunrises to shame, and suddenly it all made sense. She didn't have to look at the palm of her hand to know this stranger’s name— she had seen it so many times from around the time puberty hit that she could tell it to anybody in her sleep.

 

However, her reflex to look at the round, neat script of the name was inescapable. Her pale, dainty left hand lifted from where it rested between her thigh and the back of the couch to hover a foot from her face.

 

She was shaking.

 

 _Garnet Dawn Conway_ , sitting so simply on the meaty part of her palm below the thumb.

 

“Y–you’re…”

 

“Hello, Pearl. Lovely to finally meet you.”

* * *

Throughout the night, the two had talked for hours to catch up on what felt like an impossible to bridge gap of time. Pearl began with the point most likely to cause friction: she was the child of two non-soulmates.

 

The sheer _joy_ she felt when Garnet merely nodded at the confession—as if Pearl were telling her the sun would set at night— caused tears to prick behind Pearl’s eyes. She quickly shook the feeling off and continued, going into as much detail as it seemed Garnet wanted on her ostracized status among her classmates from grammar school through college when it was revealed she was a bastard child.

 

No matter how hard she tried, the secret would always slither its way to the light until she decided to stop shoving it into the dark corners of her life to begin with. Garnet watched her as she spoke with a calming patience and intent look that was more comforting to Pearl than she could have ever hoped anyone would be.

 

When Pearl landed on the topic of her activism for the rights of those without soulmates—because, while they were less common, they existed by a few million— Garnet somehow seemed even more enthralled by both her and her story. The look in her eyes as she studied Pearl’s face said it all. She gazed upon Pearl like the moon and stars would always pale in comparison to her.

 

It made it difficult to stay on track with her thoughts, but Pearl managed anyway.

 

She continued with the cause for her first step into activism being that her parents were never legally allowed to marry due to not being cosmic matches for each other. Pearl argued that they loved one another as much as she had witnessed anyone love the person whose name appeared on their hand.

 

Garnet was fully aware of the limitations in rights when it came to those who had, by some unfortunate event, lost their soulmate before they could meet. Or maybe they never lived anywhere near their soulmate and had no means to find them through the numerous soulmate-finder apps and websites that existed. Or those whose soulmate merely skipped this life cycle… the list went on.

 

It was no secret that those who never found their soulmate and dated outside of their mate were looked down upon as the closest things to sinners their society believed in. Some religions encouraged the practice of dating outside of your soulmate to learn how to coexist romantically with someone before being presented with the real thing. Needless to say, those practices were banned from schools and textbooks across the country.

 

It was just too taboo.

 

Garnet never agreed with the sentiment. She was too open hearted to ever shame another for their circumstances— especially over things as out of their control as soulmates tended to be. You met them when you met them, if you met them at all. To punish those whose fates had glitched, or simply never meant for them to meet in this lifetime, was unnecessarily harsh.

 

Pearl finished with the explanation behind her most recent stunt: the reason that Garnet had to save her ass to begin with, leading them all the way up to that morning.

 

“How did you find me, anyway? And get me out of there before anyone noticed?” Pearl finally asked, the look of confusion twisting up her delicate face causing Garnet to smile a bit and look away.

 

“I’d been overhearing the officers in the department moaning over how they couldn't catch the person who'd been tagging all the buildings downtown. It gave me and the other people up in the drug unit a laugh, watching them run around. Anyway, we got a call from our lieutenant saying about he needed extra hands on deck to handle a mob outside City Hall. We were obviously not too excited about that, but those were orders. So my partner and I got there first and I told her to handle the group throwing their coffees and breakfast at the graffiti—” Garnet cut herself off with an earthy laugh and shake of her head that brought heat to Pearl’s cheeks before continuing.

 

“And I went to handle the crowd gathered around, beating the holy hell out of someone— and turns out it's you. This scrawny woman curled into a ball just taking the beating without a sound.” Garnet’s tone changed to one of reluctant admiration. On one hand, she was proud of Pearl’s resilience, but on the other she hated to see her harmed that way.

 

“And I threw everyone off you, showed them my badge and said the next person to try anything was getting cuffed. They scattered, and I scooped you up and had my partner drive us back here. You'd like her. She thinks a lot like you.” Garnet finished, finally moving her dual colored eyes up to Pearl from the bowl of fruit she had been talking to.

 

The easy smile on her face turned Pearl’s stomach inside out in the best way imaginable.

 

Garnet really was beautiful in an unearthly kind of way. Some goddess metaphor she shouldn't have been trying to think of right then as opposed to saying something to her goddamn _soulmate_.

 

_Oh my god, I found my soulmate._

 

It was still a bit disconcerting.

 

What did that mean for her acceptance as the head of the movement for equality? She had the privilege of having a soulmate that those who looked up to her didn't. She couldn't speak for them, especially not anymore. She felt like a fraud.

 

Except her platform was always run on being the child of two non-soulmates, never her being single herself. She never lied, so why did she suddenly feel like she betrayed those who looked to her?

 

“Pearl, you alright? The painkillers wearing off?” Garnet worried, and Pearl snapped back to reality as quickly as she'd left it.

 

“Yeah! Yes, I’m okay. No to the painkillers.”

 

Garnet breathed a relieved laugh and nodded, pulling her full bottom lip between two rows of gleaming, white teeth.

 

Was she nervous?

 

“How long have you lived here?” Pearl asked randomly. She felt strange in silences. All of them felt awkward to her. Blue and brown eyes scanned the ceiling as Garnet thought about her answer.

 

“I moved to the States when I was 18 to attend Uni here with a boxing scholarship, but I've lived in Chicago for only three years. My mama’s the Superintendent of Police and my mum works in forensics, so I was pretty doomed to work in crime.” The taller woman chuckled a bit.

 

Pearl’s eyebrows quirked while she studied Garnet.

 

“How have you been here for three years and already your mom is the Superintendent of Police?”

 

“Well…” Garnet began, allowing Pearl to surmise that the answer was a long one.

 

“My mama’s not my biological mother, though we do share an…alarming number of traits. My mum’s soulmate was a man everyone called Blue. I didn't know him long and mum doesn't talk about him much, so I’m not sure of his real name. Apparently, he was her soulmate. They had me, and then he fell ill. He died when I was about three or so,”

 

“My mum raised me by herself until we both decided to move to D.C so I could go to University on a full ride scholarship… there she met my mama, Ruby, the badass Superintendent of Chicago Police, there on holiday. It was similar to love at first sight. Of course they weren’t allowed to be together by marriage, so they moved in with each other under the guise of roommates and took care of me throughout my years at Uni until I could move to Chicago too and start my own life.”

 

Pearl’s eyes has gone alight when Garnet began talking about her mothers’ love story. Realizing that Garnet had been so calm about Pearl having non-mated parents was due to having her own made her stomach flip in the best way. The unadulterated love and warmth with which she spoke of herself, her parents and their story tugged the next sighed words from her mouth without permission.

 

“Stars, I love you.”

 

Pearl’s thin fingers immediately clamped over her own mouth. She could feel the blush spread down her cheeks, to the tips of her ears, and down her neck and chest like hot ink. Garnet’s throaty laugh rang throughout the room like a warm hug, and instantly Pearl’s embarrassment dissipated.

 

“I love you, too. No worries— that's usually what happens when you first meet your soulmate. My mum said my father was searching for a ring to propose to her with hours after they met.” She chuckled.

 

Pearl’s hands slowly dropped from her face.

 

“You're not going to…”

 

Garnet laughed again.

 

Stars, both she and that sound were breathtaking.

 

“Let me save up for the ring first.” She grinned, shooting a wink at Pearl that stopped her breath in her lungs.

 

This woman was going to kill her.

 

In the good way. The _really_ _great_ way.

* * *

“I’ll take the couch.” Garnet murmured in the silence of the late night. Pearl’s back straightened comically, not without a wince, as she whirled around to look at her with wide eyes.

 

“No! No, I mean— I can't kick you out of your bed.” She quickly amended with a nervous half smile.

 

Garnet shrugged off the suggestion and fixed her eyes on Pearl’s, “You're my guest. I insist.”

 

Pearl’s lips parted as she searched her mind for some reason for Garnet to sleep in her own bed, or maybe allude to the true reason she wanted Garnet to stay off of the couch— namely the fact that she wanted Garnet to possibly sleep with her.

 

In the literal sense, of course.

 

 _Obviously_.

 

She physically stopped herself from groaning at her own internal monologue. What came out instead was a reluctant, “Okay.”

 

And so she laid in Garnet’s queen sized bed with too much space to herself, and tried to convince her mind that the deep inhales she hurt her ribs to take had nothing to do with the addictive scent of honey and cinnamon that seemed to permeate Garnet’s bed.

 

Pearl rolled over and craned her neck a bit to check the time on the bedside clock.

 

_3:27 AM_

 

With an exasperated huff, she threw the burgundy covers back and swung her pale feet to the warm, light carpet. Pearl took great care to reach Garnet’s sleeping form on the couch without making too much noise. She shifted her weight on the balls of her feet for a long moment, observing Garnet’s peaceful slumber with one half of her body bundled with blankets and the other half barely covered. She finally gathered the courage to reach forward and gently shake the taller woman’s covered shoulder.

 

Closed eyes fluttered open without fuss and immediately landed on Pearl with a bleary gaze.

 

“Pearl? You okay?” Garnet asked, accented voice thick and delightfully scratchy with sleep.

 

Pearl’s hands clenched and unclenched at her sides for several long seconds before finally blurting, “Will you come lay with me? At least just until I fall asleep?” The last question was practically inaudible in her embarrassment.

 

Her fidgeting hands finally settled on resting in the pockets of the slightly too large hoodie Garnet let her borrow.

 

Garnet slowly sat up and dug the heel of her hand into one of her eyes to wipe the sleep from it.

 

“Yeah, of course.” She smiled sleepily and stood from her comfortable couch to crook her elbow around Pearl’s arm and lead her back to the bedroom. The pair figured out the best way for them to lay in mostly silence. Garnet opened her arms for Pearl to nervously fit herself into her soulmate’s embrace. Her short, downy hair tickled the underside of Garnet’s jaw where Pearl was snuggled into her chest.

 

To avoid tossing in the night, the taller woman ensured one half of her body was exposed to the cool air of the house and the other half kept warm by Pearl’s body heat. She had struggled with finding a balance in temperature since she was a child. Little things like that could not be helped, but thankfully Pearl was not bothered by her shifting as they got adjusted.

 

Pearl quickly fell under the spell of slumber while curled up against Garnet, and while the dark skinned woman observed her cute, shallow breaths, she reached a hand up to lightly scratch against her soulmate’s scalp. Pearl released the most childlike yawn in response and attempted to burrow her head even further into Garnet’s neck.

 

Garnet loved her, too.

 

That much was simple.


	2. Too Deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one can keep secrets in the Drug Unit, and this movement is turning out to be a bit more than Pearl can chew.

“Dude, what the _fuck_ , congratulations!” Amethyst’s short body made a surprisingly high leap in the air as she bounced in place to hype herself up. The off-white mat beneath her feet sprung in response to her movements, and she slapped her hands together before crouching down at the ready.

  
The taller woman gave a bashful chuckle and Amethyst’s wide, dark eyes went alight with a look that almost always meant teasing was coming next. 

 

“G, you’re fucking red!” She yelled, observing Garnet’s brown skin taking on a reddish tint with far too much amusement for her own good.

 

Amethyst began circling Garnet in the ring, causing her friend and coworker to shift down into ready position.

 

“Fuck off.” Garnet grinned as she stepped into a three punch combo to Amethyst’s side that the shorter woman blocked with ease.

 

They had been going for three rounds now, and Garnet could feel the beads of sweat slipping down her neck and back, and into her sports bra and spandex. Amethyst’s bleached hair, while in a distractingly long ponytail, still managed to stick across her slick forehead and get in her eyes.

 

Garnet used that to her advantage and followed up with a roundhouse kick to the side her vision was hindered by. Amethyst caught the kick by her neck at the last second and Garnet immediately reacted by throwing her weight into getting her other leg off the ground and around the other side of Amethyst’s neck to flip her over with nothing but her upper body. The shorter woman released a pained grunt as she hit the floor, followed by an invigorated laugh after she pushed Garnet off of her.

 

“Well, shit. If you didn’t wanna talk about her, you coulda just said so.” Amethyst cackled breathlessly as Garnet helped her to her feet. She gingerly cradled her neck with one hand, rubbing where the pressure of Garnet’s calves had gone into that maneuver.

 

“That _was_ me saying so,” Garnet smirked slyly.

 

Amethyst whipped off her drenched headband and threw it at Garnet’s face.

 

“You’re disgusting.” Garnet groaned, picking up the elastic band between her thumb and forefinger before flinging it to some corner of the training room.

 

“What, ‘fraid you won’t be able to focus on your case if you’re thinkin’ about _Pearly_?” Amethyst teased, batting her jealousy-invoking long eyelashes at the taller woman, “What kinda old lady name is that, anyway?”

 

Garnet’s warning glare had Amethyst throwing her hands up in the universal sign of surrender instantly.

 

“Is she thick?” Amethyst asked, meandering over to her water bottle and chugging it down with an intensity that was common-place for her friend.  

 

Garnet wished she had something to throw at her.

 

“Is that all you care about?”

 

“I mean…”

 

“What if Perri Doddard hasn’t got a fat ass? You won’t love them?” Garnet asked, referring to the name scrawled in a strange techno font across Amethyst’s own palm.   


The shorter woman raised and dropped one shoulder with an unbothered expression as she tossed her water bottle to the same corner of the room as her discarded headband. It clattered against the floor.

  
“Guess I’ll have to.” Amethyst smirked and nudged Garnet in the side with her elbow as she passed to head to the showers.   


“And no, she’s not thick.” Garnet finally answered before Amethyst could make it to the adjoining room. The brown skinned woman turned back to look at Garnet with a broad smile.  


“Good. You always were attracted to those scrawny chicks anyways.” She cackled before making her way to the locker room.

* * *

Garnet thought about Pearl as she went through paperwork at her desk. It was probably the most boring, but necessary, aspect of being a detective, and she made it more bearable by turning her thoughts to her soulmate: her pale skin and the spattering of freckles across her nose that reminded Garnet of a sprinkle of cinnamon across cake batter.

 

Her short, strawberry blonde hair that seemed to always be styled immaculately.

 

Her tall, lanky body and the way she held herself with such grace, as if she were going to burst into a pirouette at any moment. She moved with an airiness that nodded to the White Queen of Wonderland— and absurdly enough, it was entirely fitting. If Pearl’s entire demeanor didn’t mirror some form of royalty, then Garnet wasn’t sure what could.

 

Most of these characteristics shone only when she thought Garnet was not paying attention, however.

 

Garnet knew she made Pearl nervous, that was no shock; however, she could not figure out why just her presence alone had the power to turn Pearl’s lovely elegance into a fidgety, nervous wreck. Her flightiness reminded Garnet so much of a bird that she chuckled at her desk, drawing the attention of her partner.

 

“Something funny?” Rose Quintella questioned from the desk opposite Garnet’s. Rose was the department mother for all intents and purposes, and perhaps that was partially why she had no qualms about staring authority down.

 

Garnet remembered Rose’s first act of defiance in the workplace: utterly refusing to dye her hair back to black after she entered work with bubblegum pink tresses. The gossip was that every one of the higher up’s knew she was too important, too damn good at her job to let her go.

 

So the hair stayed, and so did she.

 

Though, sometimes Garnet wondered if her mother, Ruby’s, soft spot for wayward teens-turned functioning adults, coupled with her soft spot for people without soulmates, had more to do with Rose’s continued employment than her job capabilities.

 

“No, just— thinking.” Garnet responded to her question awkwardly. She felt her face getting hot again.

 

“About your _soulmate_?” Rose grinned with a teasing flare that had Garnet huffing through her nose.

 

“Is anything a secret around here?”

 

“Honey, we’re detectives. What do you think?” Rose’s giggle bubbled into the otherwise silent air.

 

She leaned back a bit in her office chair, the wheels making a light noise against the linoleum as she rolled over to Garnet’s desk.

 

“You're going to have to tell me about her at some point.” Rose prodded once more, and Garnet finally sighed and gave in.

 

“Her name is Pearl. She's— stars, how could I even do her justice through words?” Garnet said helplessly.

 

Something strange flickered in Rose’s eyes, but they went starry just at Garnet’s inability to articulate her feelings for Pearl so quickly that she must have imagined it.

 

“Oh! I heard a lot about those first days.” Rose said with a wry smirk, a far away look taking over her round face.

 

“You're head over heels in love and nothing can steer you away from them. If they asked you to burn the Earth down, you’d do it. It's beautiful, magical, etcetera, etcetera.” But then she sighed with a half-hearted eye roll.

 

Garnet’s visor covered eyes studied Rose’s profile.

 

“What are you saying?”

 

Rose’s expression dampened a bit.

 

“Well…most times you both have lived entirely different lives. Your values are different, your upbringing is different— regardless of how familiar your souls are, your bodies in this life don't fit together in every aspect. You have to learn this new person and find a way to get the physical just as in tune as the spiritual. It takes time... at least that's what I've heard.” Rose absently rubbed her hands together, her thumb stroking over the blank spot where her soulmate's name should have been.

 

Garnet was thoughtful for a long moment.

 

“If love takes time— it takes work, too, I’d imagine.” She began, turning her covered eyes back to the pile of paperwork neatly stacked on her desk. The hand holding her pen had been sketching nonsensical shapes and figures onto a stray post-it while Rose was speaking.

 

She began adding more detail to the face of a nameless girl she drew.

 

“I do love her.” She confessed quietly.

 

Rose sent an understanding smile her way.

 

“You hardly know her, Garnet. What you feel now is the bond between mated souls, but you have to know _her_ first. Truly know her. Try not to rush too fast, okay?” She requested as she rolled back to her own desk.

 

When Garnet finally stopped staring down at her sketches and looked up at her, now across the room, Rose winked and then turned back to her own work.

* * *

Garnet’s brown curls were outlined with a fiery reddish-brown by the beaming autumn sun as she took a long sip from her condensation covered glass of water. The straw formed her lips into a perfect ‘O’ around it as her covered eyes scanned the breakfast menu. Pearl watched the subtle breeze shift her curls about her face to the point where Garnet’s fingers were pushing it back every other minute.

 

“Still haven't decided yet?” Pearl questioned. Her eyes were saved from the beating sun by Garnet’s hair blocking its rays.

 

“I swear I never usually take this long to choose.” The taller woman murmured apologetically, and Pearl waved it off immediately.

 

“No, it's fine! Please, take all the time you need.” She smiled a bit, shifting nervous hands onto the table to fidget with the silverware. Several moments passed before Garnet finally came to a decision and flagged their waiter down.

 

After they had both ordered, and their server had meandered off, Garnet placed her hands down flat on the table as if she held serious thoughts behind her lips.

 

“I overheard some of the officers chatting about your… art project on City Hall.” She began, instantly drawing Pearl’s baby blue eyes to her shaded ones.

 

“They're looking for you, Pearl. They haven't got a face or name yet, but they might soon.”

 

Pearl’s bottom lip fell victim to her teeth as she shifted her restless hands from the silverware in front of her to twirling her straw around her glass of ice water.

 

“What makes you so sure?” She asked. It was a dumb question, she knew that. Pretending to sound confident, though, always made her feel less like she was drowning in the fight she had thrown herself on the front lines of.

 

“Well, _someone_ in the mob that attacked you is bound to come forward and give a description. They probably won't get much considering you were wearing a hoodie and curled up on the ground most of the time. It’s also been a couple of weeks— witness testimony is rarely reliable to begin with, let alone after this much of a gap in between.”

 

Pearl’s thin brows quirked in question. Garnet looked up from her drink and noticed her confusion.

 

“Let's call it eyewitness fallibility. People are liable to give false leads because of what we call ‘false memories’ or ‘gap filling,’” Garnet took Pearl’s shock parted lips as a sign to continue.

 

“Not to mention how many people call in to say they’ve got information— _especially_ when there's a reward offer. Most times, none of them know a damn thing… but sometimes they do.” Garnet’s lips turned downward and she took another sip from her ice water.

 

“Anyway, it's not like they can prove it was you regardless of what that mob saw. No one saw you the night you actually painted it, yeah? Damn, except for the traffic cams—”

 

Pearl blinked several times and struggled to put her words in a cohesive order.

 

“No! No, I have a good friend on the inside who even hacked the street cameras for me. She put them on a loop the entire time I worked.”

 

Garnet held two conflicting looks on her face.

 

“As your soulmate, I’m very impressed by this, but as a detective and upholder of the law, I’m also _very_ unnerved.” She chuckled a bit.

 

Pearl’s face reddened down to her neck as she dropped her eyes back down to the table.

 

“Sorry. About all of this— about making you hold this from the police, telling you everything they would need to catch me and throw me behind bars for destruction of government property and expecting you not to say anything—”

 

“Pearl, stop.”

 

Blue eyes shot up and shined with unshed tears that had Garnet’s own eyes widening.

 

“You're not _making_ me do anything. Everything I’ve done, or will do for you is fully my own choice. I want to help you however I can… I believe in this fight just as much as you do.”

 

Pearl’s eyes softened as she trailed her gaze to trace Garnet’s face. The overwhelming affection she felt made her want to lean over the table and capture those plush lips in a searing kiss.

 

But life was not like the movies.

 

Trying to make that maneuver work was more than likely going to knock both of their cups and silverware to the ground. Instead, she settled for a heartfelt, “Thank you,” and kept her hands, and kiss, to herself.

* * *

Crystalrock State University was built over an old schoolhouse, long torn down and forgotten aside from a lone statue and the cobblestone pathways that still covered the center of campus. Every foot of expansion since CSU was erected was built around an old tribute to aged thought and aged lessons. Sidewalk and asphalt covered the rest of the campus, leaving wobbly and chipped cobblestone that caused more rolled ankles from drunken students in heels than anyone would care to admit at the heart of it all.

 

Several miles in each direction, the campus expanded greatly. Between the themed dorm rooms and futuristic department buildings, the entire university was more than Pearl’s dream college, and she was lucky enough to attend.

 

Not only did she attend, though. Pearl was the head of their social justice club, leading protests and cultivating every inch of her movement from within the confines of that campus. How fitting that the movement was birthed in a university literally expanded from outdated, aged rules and ideals to progressive and modernized ones.

 

She liked to think that maybe she would write about that parallel in her book one day.

 

For now, though, the wind whipped violently at Pearl’s face as she led hundreds of her fellow students around campus in another protest. Following her most recent decoration of City Hall and the ensuing backlash that was met with, the crowd was twice as large as usual. With every hundred people she pissed off, it seemed a thousand more rallied behind her.

 

Unsurprisingly, it was the younger generations so eager to force equality in rights for those who have soulmates and those who don't. The older people were, the less likely they tended to accept the belief that not being mated is not grounds for never being allowed to fall in love— for never being allowed to live comfortably.

 

The answering shouts to the words she amplified through her megaphone sent a rush of power through her bones that made her think she could turn the Earth upside down.

 

The march of feet behind her against the rickety cobblestone on the otherwise fairly quiet campus only spurred her onward. She had a job to do.

 

“ _Freedom!”_ She chanted, and the resounding follow up of hundreds of voices yelled in response, “ **_For us!_ ** ”

 

“ _Universe!”_

 

 _“_ **_We trust!_ ** _”_

 

_“Without a mate!”_

 

 _“_ **_That’s great!_ ** _”_

 

_“Who are we!”_

 

 _“_ **_To separate!_ ** _”_

 

The call back at her as they all marched with signs in hand was an exhilaration like no other. The growing sound of voices was such a gradual increase that she didn't realize quite how many people were behind her until she chanced a glance backward.

 

Waves of students were at her back as she repeated the chant from the beginning, and the pure adrenaline that shot through her veins at that knowledge made her feel as if she could turn entire cities to rubble.

 

After one circuit around the entire campus, a feat taking about two hours, the news vans had arrived in droves to capture the protest. Interestingly, the cameras arrived only after a bit of breakdown in the march.

 

A scuffle broke out close to the front, closer to Pearl, between an unknown younger man and a girl from her English Literature class. It seemed as if the girl was trying to stop him from vandalizing school property in the midst of their peaceful protest. There was one half of some derogatory message toward those with soulmates spray painted on the statue erected in place of the old schoolhouse before being abruptly cut short.

 

The camera men poured out of the van and toward the situation like moths to flame, lights flashing for photographs and red lights indicating film. Their feet trampled the well kept grass, then the wobbling cobblestone, right past the other protesters rushing to the side to avoid their stampede.

 

A flush of dread crept down Pearl’s spine as she realized exactly what kind of story the media would be selling about their movement.

 

It was a formula many protests had seen for generations:

 

Send an agitator or many into the midst of a peaceful protest to cause friction and be destructive, ensure cameras are around to witness the one outlier or group of outliers only, stretch and exaggerate the narrative in news reports to paint the protesters as harmful and dangerous.

 

Destroy their support system.

 

It made Pearl’s stomach _churn,_ how down to a science they had it all.

 

It made her so sick that, even with the pit carving itself into her stomach, she held her chin up a little bit higher and began again, “ _Freedom!”_

 

 **_“For us!_ ** _”_

* * *

_“It's a gang. It's a group of thugs disrupting the law and showing blatant disrespect of authority— of this country. It's unpatriotic.”_

 

 _“This is a group of people exercising their first amendment right to say what they feel. I believe that taking a stand for what_ they _believe in_ _is one of the most patriotic things they could do.”_

 

_“No— no. When they can respect the law and obey the rules of a country that gives them shelter, pays their bills, and so on— when they can be civilized and not vandalize property or riot in the streets—”_

 

_“Let me stop you right there. First of all, how can you expect millions of people to respect laws and rules put in place to restrict their rights? Laws that tell them they aren't as important as their neighbors in this country?”_

 

_“Well—”_

 

 _“Let me finish, let me finish. Second of all, who are any of us to tell_ any _group of marginalized people how they should respond to their oppression? Who are we to police their anger and frustration? Why do they have to take the moral high ground when the rest of this country is telling them their pain doesn't matter?”_

 

_“Because—”_

 

Garnet felt her temples throb, and she pressed the heels of her hands against her closed eyes in some futile attempt to stave off the ache.

 

“Turn it off,” Pearl mumbled into Garnet’s warm neck, seconds later being rewarded with sweet silence.

 

They sat in it for a long while.

 

“Are you okay?” Garnet asked eventually, adjusting her arm on the back of the couch so that it could wrap firmly around Pearl’s narrow shoulders.

 

She felt her soulmate’s sadness and frustration like a phantom limb, especially so close to her. Pearl muttered something unintelligible under her breath, and Garnet turned her head down to look at her. She hummed her request for a repeat.

 

“I can't believe that was an actual debate on national television.” Pearl’s voice was flat, and she hugged her arms even tighter around Garnet’s torso.

 

“What am I even doing? Why did I think I could single handedly end this? These hundreds and thousands of years of— of _bullshit_?”

 

Garnet ran her long fingers through the downy softness of Pearl’s short hair. Her eyes trained on some random corner of the room, and she was silent for a long moment. She could feel Pearl’s quick, discontented heart beat against her torso.

 

“You're not alone.” Garnet told her finally, tilting her head back down to meet Pearl’s discouraged gaze. “Every revolution’s been torn down and spat on by those in power. The key is to keep fighting, to stay angry, to not give up. Don't let their opinions, opinions that keep people below them, convince you to stop standing up for what's _right_.”

 

Garnet felt her voice waver toward the end, caught off guard by just how deeply she felt and believed those words. Just ten minutes of a live debate on the rights of other human beings, as if that is ever a topic that _requires_ debate, lit a flame in her gut. If she wasn't on the front lines with Pearl before, she sure as hell would be now.

 

“I'm terrified.” Pearl murmured suddenly with a guilty tone in her voice that gave Garnet pause.

 

“All of the death threats I've gotten— that the movement has gotten in general— I’m afraid to walk outside with how big this revolution has gotten. Once people know my face…” Pearl’s words were rushed out into Garnet’s neck, her wiry fingers holding her soulmate’s hands in a death grip.

 

“I will never let anything, or any _one_ lay a hand on you,” Garnet swore, her voice strong with conviction.

 

And somehow, even though it was only a promise of her standing between Pearl and the rest of the country, those words were the most honest thing Garnet could have said in response.

 

Pearl curled tighter into her side and released a heavy breath that seemed to expel the stress in her shoulders with the exhale. Garnet caught those blue eyes staring at her intensely, flicking back and forth between her own. Pearl opened her mouth eventually, some sentence ready to tumble from her lips, but she closed it again, and instead turned her head to place a gentle kiss on the side of Garnet’s neck.

 

Garnet felt a shot of energy sing through her spine at the contact and pulled Pearl even closer until she was in her lap. The taller woman scratched slowly at her scalp, causing a tiny groan to leave Pearl’s mouth contentedly. Garnet's lips quirked in a smile and she leaned down to brush them against Pearl’s forehead.

 

“I will always fight for you.”

 

Pearl tilted her head up to look at Garnet with wide, some would say loving, eyes and jolted forward to capture those full lips in the kiss she had been waiting for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading and the kind feedback on the previous chapter. This story will continue to get pretty controversial, but feel free to send any clarifying questions or come discuss with me on tumblr: bakedgarnet.tumblr.com. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this chapter, let me know what you thought in a comment and much love to you all!


	3. Know Her, Find Her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garnet and Pearl stumble into their first argument, and the consequences might be greater than either ever intended.

Garnet had been at work for a grand total of thirteen hours and Pearl was experiencing a migraine like no other.

 

Having grown up with non-mated parents, she missed out on a lot of the instruction and warnings many other children received alongside “the talk” and other things as inherent to childhood learning as potty training. 

 

Apparently, when away from one’s soulmate for long periods of time during the first few weeks of meeting, one’s body starts to fucking hate them.

 

Pearl curled up on Garnet’s plush bed with her sharp nose buried into the detective’s memory foam pillow. Her shampoo scent of honey and maybe a hint of cinnamon, alongside something purely  _ Garnet, _ clung to the pillowcase and wafted into her nostrils like a watered down balm to the ache in her body. 

 

Her temples throbbed and her chest hurt like an itch she couldn't scratch, and she blindly groped for her phone on the night stand to call Garnet and see if she was faring any better. 

 

The phone rang a near agonizing five times before Garnet’s strained voice responded on the other line.

 

_ “Pearl?” _

 

Just the sound of her voice was like a shot of relief through the piercing pounding between her ears. Her gasp of pleasure rushed in like she had been holding in her breath.

 

“Can you come home? Please?” She begged into the receiver, eyes squeezing shut as the temporary relief faded into pain once more.

 

“ _ ‘M already on my way. _ ” Garnet murmured breathlessly into the phone, and Pearl cherished that single sentence.

 

“Can you stay on the phone? Keep talking, please.”

 

_ “Just— give me a second.”  _ Garnet panted, and Pearl wanted to be confused, but the drumming of her head behind her eyelids wouldn't let her.

 

The front door nearly slammed open, and Pearl barely heard the lock turn behind her entry before she heard the clatter of Garnet’s gun being dropped on the table, and then she was stepping through the bedroom’s doorway and laying down until she was nearly on top of her. Garnet’s strong arms wrapped tightly around Pearl’s torso, burying her nose and lips against her soulmate’s warm, slender neck and inhaling deeply. 

 

The burning ache between the two of them seemed to dissipate immediately upon contact. They basked in their newfound comfort for a long moment before Garnet said, “I asked Rose how long this is supposed to last. She said it was different for everyone.”

 

“Rose?”

 

“My partner. The one you remind me of.”

 

“Oh.” Pearl sighed against Garnet’s skin, barely present for the conversation in the midst of relief spreading through her veins. 

 

“How was work?” Pearl asked eventually, following a long stretch of comfortable silence. She turned until she was nose to nose with Garnet, and they stared into each other's eyes like every cheesy soulmate romance movie the other had ever watched.

 

“Rose and I are knee deep in this case…” Garnet began with an exhausted sigh that washed her fruity gum scented breath over Pearl’s cheeks. 

 

“There's some new drug being pushed underground that alters the part of your mind attached to your soulmate. The pineal gland, I believe.” At Pearl’s confused look, Garnet elaborated.

 

“You know that spark you felt? The way you were drawn to me when we first met? Or sort of shared consciousness that happened once we met as well?”

 

Pearl nodded slowly, warily.

 

“This drug deactivates the chemical secretion from that gland that connects you to your soulmate so that even if you met them, they would feel no different to you than some stranger on the street.”

 

A suspicious look of recognition dawned over Pearl’s face, and the pale woman refused to meet her gaze even at such close proximity. Garnet could feel the inner turmoil within her like an extension of her own mind, and brought her hand up to cup Pearl’s jaw. She tilted the pale woman’s cheek until she faced her again.

 

“What is it?”

 

Pearl drew away with a guilty look spread across her features that made Garnet’s stomach drop violently. 

 

“Pearl…”

 

“Please don't be angry—”

 

“What  _ is it _ ?” Garnet asked frantically, dread creeping into her veins like ice.

 

Pearl moved until she was sat on the edge of Garnet’s bed with slumped shoulders and fidgeting hands. She took a deep inhale, and released the rest of it alongside a flood of explanation almost too rushed for Garnet to keep up with.

 

“My mother is an independent scientist. The company she used to work for fired her because her experiments were too risky. She was working on some solution to people more and more often not having soulmates… but she couldn't find one,” Pearl began, still not facing the chilling silence from the woman behind her.

 

“She thought maybe she could manufacture some temporary, synthetic soulmate connection for a single lifetime, and instead she created the opposite— by complete accident!” Pearl turned around finally, looking at Garnet with pleading blue eyes that shine with panicked tears.

 

“She had to test it on herself because she had lost access to other test subjects— which is how she ended up without a soulmate to begin with… and later had me with someone who wasn't her mate.”

 

Pearl continued quickly, “I can't imagine she released the drug on purpose. One of the colleagues she worked with after she was fired must have leaked it, or at least made some replica of the real thing with the ingredients stolen from her lab.”

 

Garnet’s gaze was unnervingly unreadable, and Pearl felt her stomach coil tightly.

 

“Where's the lab?” The detective asked finally, her full eyebrows drawn into a small, determined frown.

 

“Garnet…” Pearl huffed with a pained look in her eyes.  “I _can’t_. For fuck’s sake, that's _my_ _mother_!”

 

“Innocent people are at risk, Pearl! There were five teenagers sitting in questioning today who’ve taken it recreationally that will _ never  _ get to experience finding their soulmate because of this drug!” 

 

“ _ If _ they found their soulmates at all.” Pearl muttered harshly, drawing an incredulous look from Garnet.

 

“ _ What _ did you just say?”

 

“Maybe the more people without soulmates, the less normalized it will be to outcast people without them.” Pearl said, a bit louder this time and with a bit more confidence behind her words.

 

“Do you wish you'd never met me? Do you wish the Universe hadn't practically dropped you in my lap that day? Because that's what this drug is robbing these children of. Whether they find their mate or not, they deserve even the  _ chance _ to be able to make that connection with them.” Garnet’s voice rose steadily, practically pleading by the end of her argument.

 

She looked at Pearl with a much different gaze than the one she had previously been using when they were wrapped in each other's arms mere minutes ago.

 

“Of course I don't wish that… I just— in a world without soulmates people would be free to be with whoever they wanted. There would be no judgement, no oppression.”

 

“We can not  _ eradicate  _ soulmates, Pearl! Whatever you do to your body in this life cycle doesn't erase the fact that there is another person out there  _ literally made for you _ . What's the point of ignoring that when your other half is out there for you to find?”

 

“ _ If  _ your other half is out there to find!” Pearl rose to her feet, pointing an accusing finger at Garnet’s chest.

 

“Are you saying all those people without soulmates this life cycle are just supposed to suck it up and wait alone? What about my parents, or your parents? Is their love less valuable because it's not with their soulmate? Stars, you sound just like  _ them!”  _ Pearl spat, her flushed cheeks and neck all the evidence needed to see her anger.

 

“That's not what I meant, Pearl, and you know it! I mean the people out there  _ with _ mates that will never get the chance to experience them because of a drug  _ your _ mother manufactured! You can't take that chance away from people, Pearl! It's  _ sick _ .”

 

The silence hung between them in Garnet’s bedroom for a long, long moment, deafening and heavy.

 

Finally, Pearl’s face screwed up into one of defiance.

 

“I’m not telling you where her lab is,” she growled spitefully. 

 

Garnet’s cheek twitched, and she swung her legs over the opposite end of the bed before standing. Fists clenched at her sides, she bit the inside of her cheek before she could say anything she would regret, and exited the room with chillingly calm silence in her wake. Pearl watched her go with narrowed eyes, but as soon as she was out of sight, her shoulders slumped again as she dropped herself back down onto the edge of the bed. Pearl lowered her guilty gaze to her hands in her lap and wished, not for the first time, that she was better at handling confrontation.

 

Her thumb traced Garnet’s name on the inside of her palm.

* * *

 

Garnet stood at the whiteboard in the drug unit with Rose anxiously chewing on her thumbnail by her side. The larger woman took a slow step toward the board, as if contemplating something. Her hand dropped from her full lips and fell to match the opposite one on her hip.

 

“This warehouse— the squad didn't find  _ anything _ there earlier? It was empty?” She asked, bringing her index finger up to rest on a blue post-it note with Garnet’s handwriting of an address on it, a possible lead Garnet had come across that morning from an anonymous tip.

 

Garnet huffed through her nose and crossed her muscular arms across her chest, “No. Nothin’. They said they'd turned the place upside down.” Her full bottom lip worried itself between two sets of white teeth. 

 

A sharp flash of pain shot through her left temple, and Garnet closed her eyes briefly as she tried to soldier through it. She was clearly still able to go through soulmate withdrawals, and she and Pearl hadn't even spoken in two days. The first twelve hours had been the hardest, and she pushed through night sweats, pounding headaches and general soreness at the center of her forehead since then. Pain medication made it tolerable, and she had a case to work on that needed all of her attention.

 

“Something about that doesn't feel right. Can we go back ourselves? I just want to check again.” Rose murmured as her dark eyes scanned the white board full of connections that led to dead end after dead end.

 

Garnet turned to look at her through the pain, and Rose met her searching eyes with an encouraging smile and two thumbs up. Garnet’s lips quirked upward in response, and she gave a sure nod before moving to grab her blazer off the back of her desk chair.

 

The two stepped out of their nondescript detective car with a synchronization that spoke to their intensive time together. Garnet’s booted feet were almost silent on the concrete, and Rose followed closely behind her with one hand on her gun holster— just in case. Garnet appraised the seemingly innocuous brick building:

 

Crumbling walls, unkempt front lawn, weeds growing between the cracks in the concrete and thick ivy growing up the brick walls like a mini jungle.

 

For all intents and purposes, it seemed like no one had occupied the area in years. Garnet knew better, though, and clearly so did Rose.

 

“Rose, come look at this.” Garnet murmured from around the corner of the building. When Rose sauntered up to her side, she saw the curly haired woman with one lone finger pressed curiously toward against a strange, goopy substance leaking from between the bricks.

 

“Garnet! Don't touch that!” Rose panicked a bit, Garnet turned to look at her with a startled expression and immediately yanked her hand away.

 

“You have the warrant, don’t you?” Rose asked.

 

Garnet nodded, feeling its weight in her back pocket. Rose moved around to the front with caution, drawing her weapon and pointing it toward the ground as she went. Garnet followed her lead warily, but she trusted Rose with her life, and so she swallowed down the feeling of unease in her gut.

 

Rose moved to the front door and flicked the knob quickly before easing the steel door open with the toe of her shoe. She raised her gun up and cleared the vast, open room before Garnet followed her back and did the same. 

 

Holstering their weapons, they cautiously walked to the wall with the strange substance leaking through. They were greeted by a lone table with various tubes and pipes sticking out from behind it.

 

Garnet’s eyebrows screwed up in confusion as she took a step closer, “So something  _ was  _ here. It was just moved.” Her mismatched eyes scanned the dirty concrete floor around them and saw lines in the dust and grime where heavy machinery must have sat. She opened her mouth to say something else before something hard and blunt cracked against the back of her skull.

 

She dropped immediately, her hands going to the back of her head out of pure instinct. Her fingers came into contact with the warm heat of sticky blood before her vision went dark.

* * *

Pearl bit her tongue in reaction to what felt like a sharp, piercing stab at the back of her head. She had been aching all day as a result of being separated from Garnet, but this pain was so much different— so much _worse._ She was just leaving the campus of Crystalrock State, walking despondently through the bustling neighborhood surrounding the university, when she felt it. The pain faded as quickly as it had arrived, but something in the pit of her gut told her that something was _wrong._

 

_ Garnet. _

 

And despite their argument only a tender two days ago, the same voice that told her something was off was also demanding that she go find her soulmate immediately.

 

Pearl’s slow meandering burst into a light jog toward the bus stop. The police station was a few stops away, and she knew that if she followed that street all the way down, she would run into it eventually. Without the patience or mental capability to stand for who knew how long waiting for a bus, Pearl took off in a sprint down the sidewalk. 

 

Random passerby nearly jumped out of her way as she went, a few she might have recognized as her classmates had her mind not been one hundred percent focused on getting to the station. 

 

Her feet pounded against the pavement with sharp smacks that only spurred her onward. The burning in her lungs and perpetual pain in the center of her forehead were eventually drowned out by adrenaline coursing through her veins.

 

Her focus narrowed as simply as breathing into one pinprick of a thought:  _ Garnet, Garnet, Garnet _

 

She had been sprinting for nearly ten minutes when her sneaker clad feet came to a slow jog. The police station Garnet worked in stood tall and imposing over the other, smaller buildings. She picked up her pace and took the cement front steps two at a time until she was at the front doors. Pearl pushed the metal handles inward and stepped onto a gray carpet that acted as a place to wipe one’s feet.

 

She marched directly over to the front desk and tried to get her burning lungs under control before breathlessly saying to the receptionist, “I’m looking for Garnet Conway.” 

 

The woman behind the desk raised a thin eyebrow, “Relationship to Detective Conway?”

 

Too tired to waste anymore of her breath, Pearl simply held her hand out for the other woman to examine. Her eyes roved Garnet’s name on the inside of Pearl’s palm and brought a verification scanner out from behind the desk. 

 

The red lasers within the scanner ran over Garnet’s name in her palm and turned green in confirmation that the name wasn't some tattoo or pen markings.

 

The receptionist picked up the phone and dialed what Pearl assumed was Garnet’s desk only to be met by the voicemail. 

 

“Give me a moment. I’m going to try her partner, Detective Quintella, ma'am.”

 

Pearl nodded, her breaths finally evening out before sparking again in the wash of panic that rose over her like a wave. She gripped the edge of the desk and  _ knew  _ that something was wrong with Garnet. Something awful was happening to her soulmate  _ as she stood there _ , and there was nothing she could do about it.

 

Frustration rose within her like licking flames.

 

Detective Quintella’s desk phone must not have worked either, because the woman hung the phone up with a frown marring her forehead.

 

“Let me just try their pagers,” The woman laughed nervously, as if she too felt something was off.

 

The receptionist sat in silence as Pearl stood quietly, anxiously waiting. Her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides and, for the love of the Universe, she wanted to be doing  _ something _ other than just  _ standing there _ —

 

Nothing.

 

“That's… strange. Garnet, especially, always answers at least her pager.” The woman murmured to herself. 

 

_ Wait _ .

 

_ Detective Quintella… Garnet’s partner, Rose… Rose Quintella— _

 

Pearl’s entire body tensed under the realization that she  _ knew  _ that damned name, and had known it since she was a child. How  _ stupid, stupid, stupid _ not to have put two and two together before this moment.

 

Pearl had a quick burst of a flashback to her childhood years, watching a teenage Rose Quintella be doted on by her mother, Magenta Cabot.

 

Rose, who was always in the streets with what little family she had entirely uncaring of her whereabouts. 

 

Rose, who met Magenta before she went into deep, independent scientific study, back when she was a chemistry teacher at Homeworld High School trying in vain to keep Rose from failing out.

 

Rose, who stole her mother’s attention from Pearl as easily as attention from a toddler, and who left her to fend for herself as the only bastard child in her classes.

 

And Pearl resented her mother for those years, sure, but oh how she  _ loathed _ Rose.

 

Rose, who somehow had gone on to be a detective alongside Pearl's soulmate after Magenta made her work in the lab with her for years to build her resume and get her off of the streets.

 

Rose. 

 

T he only person Pearl knew that would have stolen her mother’s wayward formula and distributed it as a recreational drug for who knew how long before it was finally discovered.

 

Pearl felt lightheaded, and she grimaced around a heavy swallow as she took slow steps away from the desk. The receptionist stared at her warily, and Pearl thought she heard something along the lines of, “Are you alright, ma'am?” before she turned and sprinted from the station. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! As always, leave a comment with any reactions, theories, questions-- or bring them over to my tumblr bakedgarnet.tumblr.com
> 
> Hope you enjoy(ed) your holiday (and if not, it's okay. sometimes family interactions are awful, and if any of you need someone to talk to about that you can do so through my tumblr!)
> 
> Much love to you all :)
> 
> PS, I did some concept sketches for this story if anyone would like to see them (http://bakedgarnet.tumblr.com/post/154905920026/concept-sketches-for-my-bad-pearldetective-garnet)


	4. Garnet's Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garnet meets a branch of the Resistance, and the ensuing trauma almost severs her soul connection to Pearl.

Garnet woke woozily in darkness, bound to some hard surface like every corny detective and murder mystery movie she had ever watched. Her eyes blearily scanned the room around her, but her vision was flickering in and out as if— 

 

Candles. 

 

The scent of flora wafted up to her nose and she scrunched her face up at the familiarity of it. Her hands tugged at the bonds around her wrists— wire, not rope, unfortunately—  and she alerted whomever was set to watch her of her consciousness. A short, blonde haired woman stood with her chest puffed out proudly and her hands clasped behind her back. All four foot ten of her body tried to seem as imposing as possible, but only served to force Garnet’s eyeroll. 

 

“I— ahem— _ apologize _ for the restraints. We couldn't take the risk of you escaping. I’m sure you understand.”

 

Blue and brown eyes squinted to focus better on this tiny stranger, and Garnet’s lips curled into a sneer.

 

“You’ve no idea what you're doing.”

 

The blonde woman waved the comment away with an ease that had Garnet’s body tensing with adrenaline. The stranger held the same posture, but turned her body to the side and began to pace the short space in front of her captive. Garnet did a quick assessment of the room, and it seemed as if she was in the bedroom of some teenage girl. It was pitch black aside from the two candles glowing behind her, and the shadows threw themselves across the walls like dancing figures.

 

“I believe I am quite adept at my job. Rose wished she could have been here when you woke up to explain herself, but she had something else to tend to. I’m here in her place. My name is Perri Doddard.” 

 

Garnet’s face scrunched up as the name threw her back to her co-worker, Amethyst, and the name of the woman standing before her on her hand. Too many things were connecting in ways that made her feel nauseous. No one was who they seemed to be. It was as if her entire world was going off-kilter. 

 

“To get to the heart of the matter— you know too much about the Resistance.”

 

“The _ what _ ?” Garnet sat dumbfounded, her hands still tirelessly tugging at the tied wire wrapped around her wrists. She felt one of her hands finding the barest amount of leeway in the makeshift cuffs, and if she just kept  _ tugging _ —

 

“Please, there's no way you just  _ happened _ to stumble upon our base. Don't play dumb.”

 

“I received that address through an anonymous tip. As far as I know, your Resistance is a drug cartel with a mole ratting you out.” Garnet kept talking as she worked to force her hand through the binding around her wrists. It hurt like hell, grated against her skin and cut at her circulation, but she kept pulling. Perri slowed down her pacing until she stood still in front of her captive, a frown appearing on her brows.

 

Garnet kept talking, “But it seems as if you’ve got a mole as well, in the drug unit. Rose’s doing your dirty work for you, I see. Smart move. I would’ve never suspected her. I trusted her, even.”

 

Perri quickly schooled her features into a look of detached calm, “Well, yes. I was not made aware of your lack of knowledge on the Resistance, but I’m sure Rose wants you held here for a reason.”

 

“And where is ‘here’ exactly?”

 

“That's for me to know, and for you never to find ou—”

 

The room was suddenly bathed in bright light from the overhead lamp, and a woman stepped through the doorway with a pensive expression on her face. The illumination brought into sight a twin bed with bright pink covers in disarray and a hardwood floor with stray shoes scattered about across a rumpled, pale pink rug. The dresser held a makeup mirror and the obvious makeup bag, as well as several classic novels stacked to the side. Posters of girl bands and boy bands alike flooded the walls until the floral wall paper was hardly visible. It was every teenage bedroom she had ever seen in her life.

 

“Perri, have you sent the document with the ingredients to—” The woman’s back went ramrod straight at the sight of Garnet bound in some wooden desk chair. Her tired eyes went round, and a hand shot to her mouth as she turned her gaze on the short blonde standing with her hands spread wide as if already prepared to explain.

 

“ _ What is this _ ?” The woman demanded loudly, her voice rising with her panic. 

 

“It's not what you think it is Dionne, just call Rose and ask—”

 

“You kidnapped a  _ detective;  _ are you out of your fucking mind?” The taller woman hissed taking a step toward Garnet’s captor.

  
"Well, it might be what you think it is..."  
  


The woman took a step forward and Perri took a startled step back with her hands rising as if to block a blow to her face that never came. The floorboard creaked under even her small weight, and the imposing woman closing in on her wore boots that thudded heavily against it.

 

“Tell Rose her explanation had better be worth doing  _ this _ ,” This Dionne woman growled, her hair a shock of white swooping from her scalp in delicate waves. She didn’t look any older than her mid forties aside from the color of her hair, but perhaps she just aged well?

 

“If she ruins this for us, it's  _ her _ head on the pike—  _ not mine _ .”

 

A golden blonde haired woman appeared at the doorway as soon as Dionne finished speaking, her lips parted in the beginning of, “What's going on in he— Oh for Stars’ _sake_.” She groaned.

 

Garnet  _ tugged _ just the last bit at the restraints binding her wrists together and finally slipped one hand out with nothing but a brief, pained grimace. Her expression went unnoticed by the bickering women in front of her, and she flexed her hand for a long moment to get the blood flowing back through her fingers. She stayed put for the moment, unwilling to take on any chances that were three to one in such a compact space.

 

“What the hell were you  _ thinking _ ?” The new stranger demanded, and Perri slapped both of her hands over her face, dragging them down to reveal an exhausted expression.

 

“For the last time, this was  _ Rose _ ! I’m just the messenger, damn it! The facilitator!”

 

The blonde’s expression turned tight, and her thin lips pressed into a firm line, “You know what we have to do."

 

Perri’s face fell a bit, a frown overtaking her pinched expression. “Isn't that a little— extreme? She doesn't even know anything! We could just knock her back out and drop her off where we got her when Rose is finished.”

 

“You know better than anybody what happens when we let people go without any  _ insurance.”  _ Dionne growled, turning to look at Garnet with an aggressive glint behind her brown eyes. 

 

Garnet flinched back from her gaze and felt her heartbeat pick up pace. Her instincts told her that she just might have to fight through three women to get out— not the odds she was hoping for, but it had to be done.

 

“What are you talking about?” Perri asked quizzically, and the blonde standing in the doorway walked inside, around the back of Garnet’s chair and yanked her free hand up for the room to see the name on her palm.

 

A deep chuckle vibrated through the blonde haired woman's chest at Garnet’s ability to free herself, “A sly one, aren't you?” She smirked, “This is Magenta’s girl’s soulmate. You all remember Pearl, don’t you?”

 

Perri rubbed her fingers across her jaw as she considered their solution to bringing Garnet in. She remembered how they let Pearl continue in life without interference because she was Magenta’s daughter, and how much of a mistake that had been. Her lips twisted to the side.

 

“Alright, fine. Do it.”

 

Dionne turned on her heel and exited the room with her hair swinging dramatically behind her. The panic rising in Garnet’s chest made her breaths come out even quicker. Before Garnet could think to break free, the blonde woman dropped her hand and tugged it back harshly behind the hair to re-bind her even tighter than last time. The wire dug into her wrists horridly and the chilling realization that no one with her interest in mind knew where she was slunk through her veins like ice.

 

The white haired woman returned again with a yellow pill in her hand. With a clinical detachment, she gripped Garnet’s jaw in one hand with a bruising force and squeezed until she forced her lips and teeth to part. Garnet’s mouth was pushed open enough for her to shove the pill between her lips and clamp her hand over her mouth so she couldn't spit it out. 

 

“Swallow.” She ordered sharply, and didn't remove her hand until she saw Garnet’s throat bob.

 

“I hope it was nice having a soulmate while it lasted; however, to ensure that you can't expose us without becoming outcasted yourself— you've been given the pill that eliminates your soul bond. We hope you understand.” Perri recited matter-of-factly with a small smile on her lips that probably suggested she thought she was doing the right thing. 

 

Garnet’s blood boiled.

 

///

 

Pearl paced up and down the empty space of the used-to-be drug lab with only the echo of her marching feet to accompany her. Her fingers gripped themselves harshly as she wore a path into the concrete floor and went over every possible way that she  _ couldn't  _ help Garnet because they hadn't spoken in nearly three days and she had no idea where the  _ fuck  _ she was if she wasn't  _ here _ —

 

Headlights pulling up outside and shining through the dusty windows sent her skittering to a dark corner of the open space as not to be seen. Her legs pulled up to her chest as she crouched off to the side, faintly ruffling some old, discarded newspaper pages as she went. Dust coated the bottom of her jeans and the sides of her shoes, but she ignored that in favor of listening hard for the growing sound of two voices murmuring amongst themselves.

 

She could hardly make out their sentences, but when the door creaked open and two familiar faces carried in an even more familiar body, her heart plummeted. Perri Doddard stood with her mother’s old colleague, Dionne White, hefting Garnet within the massive building and unceremoniously dropping her body to the ground. They turned to each other and spoke in hushed voices for another long moment before taking a final look back at Garnet’s body and walking off. The two exited through the door, and Pearl waited for the headlights to disappear before rushing to her soulmate’s side. 

 

Being near her again brought an overwhelming rush of relief to the pain of separation soaring through her muscles and pounding behind her forehead. Her fingers flitted over Garnet’s body and she was so,  _ so  _ relieved to see that she was still breathing. Pearl jerked her hands away when Garnet jolted up suddenly and immediately turned her head to the side to open her mouth. 

 

Pearl’s face scrunched up in disgust as a large pool of saliva exited between her full lips and onto the chilly concrete below her— all with one partially dissolved yellow pill sitting in the center. Pearl’s eyes widened greatly and she looked back to her soulmate’s face in horror.

 

“Garnet… is that—”

 

“It was you, wasn't it.” Garnet’s voice croaked, and upon closer inspection, Pearl could see a bruise forming on her sharp cheekbone.

 

“What?” Pearl asked, confusion washing over her her growing worry.

 

“The anonymous tip. It was you.”

 

“I just— I felt so bad about ratting my mother out and leaving you hanging, and—”

 

“So you set me up.” Garnet replied calmly. Her voice was scratchy with disuse and dehydration, and she carefully sat herself up while avoiding the pool of her own saliva beside her. She winced as her wrists bent to take on her weight.

 

“What?  _ Of course not! _  I had no idea  _this_ would... would happen. ” Pearl's voice broke halfway through her sentence.

 

_ “ _ It was j ust Rose, then.”

 

“Oh, Garnet… I’m so sorry. I didn't know your partner, Rose was— well—  _ Rose _ .” Pearl rambled, feeling absolutely awful about her own poor foresight. 

 

She slowly brought her hands to Garnet’s cheeks, giving her soulmate time to move away if she wanted to. When Garnet stayed put, she cupped her face between her cold hands gently as not to disturb the bruise on her cheek.

 

“I sent you the tip because I thought about what you said— a lot actually— and attacking people’s soul connection is just… it's too far. And it's  _ wrong _ to throw innocent people in the crossfire that never asked to be a part of this.” She never looked away from Garnet’s dual colored eyes as she spoke, absently tracing her thumbs across her smooth skin.

 

“I see that now.” Pearl murmured with a pained look on her face as she glanced down at the little yellow pill that almost severed her and Garnet’s soul bond.

 

Garnet’s stoic face melted after a long stretch of silence, and she leaned the short distance forward to press her lips against Pearl’s like her touch alone would quench her thirst. Their lips moved together frantically, the reality of what could have happened sinking in and forcing them even closer together.

 

“I almost lost you.” Garnet exhaled against Pearl’s lips and shuddered in her arms, her breaths becoming ragged enough that she pulled her lips away from the shorter woman’s. Her shoulders shook with a dry sob and she dropped her face into her hands. The shock of what had happened, being kidnapped and force fed a pill that would have ruined everything, seemed to be crashing down around her like fallen debris. 

 

Pearl watched her pitifully, but eventually she moved forward and wrapped her arms around Garnet’s torso. She pulled the detective into her chest and stroked her fingers over the tight curls of her hair. The hard chill of the icy concrete pressing against her jeans went unnoticed when Garnet absorbed all of her attention.

 

“Nothing like this will ever happen again.” Pearl vowed, her voice the chilled one of a knight pledging herself. 

 

“I will always fight for you.” She repeated the words Garnet had said to her only a week ago, but the meaning behind them was very different. Garnet may have to work within the confines of the law, but Pearl would be damned if she did— and there was hell to pay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting and supporting this story. For updates, concept art and more, you can head to my tumblr: bakedgarnet.tumblr.com 
> 
> Happy new year to you all, and much love!


	5. Garnet's Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garnet's recovery takes longer than anticipated, and the ones closest to her feel it the most.

Since the incident, Garnet’s silences were more and more often. Less comfortable and more heavy. Pearl would take the bus to her house right after her classes for the day, and was almost always greeted by a closed bedroom door that separated her sleeping soulmate from the rest of the world.

She slept so much, lately.

Pearl would move silently to the side of her bed and press a lingering kiss to her cheek—eventually the swelling had gone down— and go to Garnet’s kitchen to cook them both dinner. She had to go grocery shopping for her at one point. Most of the food in her house had either diminished or gone bad, and there was little that was even touched unless she herself used it. 

When Pearl asked why she hadn’t been keeping up with supplies herself, and when Garnet slowly dragged her downcast gaze up from over her untouched baked chicken and rice, Pearl realized Garnet probably hadn't even left her house in weeks, let alone eaten consistently enough to notice.

From what she could gather of two word responses and non-enthusiastic hums of acknowledgement, doctor's orders had been two weeks, but Ruby had granted her as much time off as she needed to recover mentally from the attack. Apparently, it was only the house’s locked doors and the lack of keys in her mothers’ possessions that kept Ruby and Sapphire from camping out in her guest room. 

Pearl gave up on trying to make Garnet eat for that night. Instead, she wrapped the plate up in foil and stuck it into the refrigerator in case her soulmate wanted it later. 

Twice, Pearl had been around to witness Garnet doing something as simple as changing her clothes or heading to the shower— only to be greeted with spatterings of bruises across her ribs and shoulders. Her wrists were still purple from where the ties dug into her skin.

Whenever Pearl noticed, or had been caught staring guilty at her injuries, Garnet would rush to cover herself and clench her jaw with shame. All Pearl wanted to do was reach out and hold her— explain that none of it was her fault and that there was no shame to be had in being a victim.

But she knew that wasn't true to someone as proud as Garnet. Exposing her perceived weakness to Pearl would sooner make Garnet feel even worse before it dared make her feel better.

One night, Pearl sat on Garnet’s plush couch with her laptop warming her thighs as she typed rapidly at the keyboard to get through an essay due within the next few days. Garnet was curled up at her side with a book held a foot from her face that her dual colored eyes tore through rapidly. Pearl didn’t think she had met anyone who read as fast as Garnet did.

She envied her for that on days where twenty paged article readings, analyses and discussion topics were due the next time her World Mythology class met. 

Finally too distracted by the burning desire to at least hear Garnet’s voice, Pearl abruptly stopped typing and said, “What are you reading?”

Instead of answering verbally, Garnet held her thumb on the page she was on as not to lose her spot, and turned the book so that Pearl could see the cover.

‘ _ The Other Wes Moore’ _

“Is it good?”

Pearl felt more than saw Garnet’s nod against her side, and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from pushing her soulmate too far. She saved her progress and closed the laptop before leaning over to place it on the coffee table. Blue and brown eyes turned to look at her in confusion before Pearl was bringing her pale hands down to pull Garnet closer to her.

The taller woman folded down the page in her book and set it on top of Pearl’s closed laptop before getting comfortable in the pale woman’s arms. Pearl guided Garnet until her head was pressed into the crook of her neck and her fingers pulled gently at the tight curls that sprung from Garnet’s scalp.

Stars, it hurt Pearl to see a woman as strong and prideful as Garnet look so broken down. She guiltily admitted to herself that even with dark circles under her eyes and rarely a smile in sight, Garnet was still the most stunning woman she had ever laid eyes on. It was the wrong thing to put her focus into, she knew that. 

“Thank you.” Garnet murmured almost silently, and Pearl’s heart jumped at the sound of her voice. 

Whether it was for the feeling of pure, unadulterated love that she felt filtering through their soul connection, or for the simple act of Pearl holding her together, she was welcome.

Her chest swelled and she leaned down to press a loving kiss to Garnet’s warm temple.

“Always.”

She would be there to help put Garnet back together. If she never did anything else, she vowed to do at least that.

* * *

Garnet lowered herself down into the scalding heat of her bubbly bath water, releasing a sigh through her full lips as she went. The steam curled up toward the ceiling and the smell of the cinnamon bath suds wafted into her nose. Her arms rested on either side of the tub, and she tilted her head back until it rested serenely against the wall.

Her bruises had all but faded, she was balancing out her eating habits… she still had her connection to Pearl despite the raging fear that even that damned pill being _in her mouth_ would alter their soul bond in  _ some _ way…

It hadn't. They were okay.

_ You're okay. _

She shut her eyes.

After a long moment, the door creaking open followed by the barely-there sound of clothes hitting the floor foreshadowed the disturbance in the water she felt. Her eyes fluttered open from her deep relaxation, and a smile curled her lips upward. Pearl was lowering herself down to settle between her legs, her smooth and slim back tilting until it rested against Garnet’s torso. 

Garnet dropped her arms from the sides of the tub and wrapped them around Pearl’s tiny waist to pull her even closer. She craned her neck downward until she could press a soft kiss to the pale woman’s burning cheek. 

The tensions in Pearl’s back and shoulders melted out of her as she relaxed against Garnet’s solid, yet supple form. Her head tilted backward until it lay on Garnet’s shoulder, and she closed her eyes in bliss. The detective traced whimsical shapes into Pearl’s sides beneath the water, and the peaceful silence of the house permeated the room.

Garnet watched Pearl’s modest chest rise and fall slowly, the suds pooling right beneath her breasts. 

“No word on Rose yet?” Came Pearl’s gentle voice, her eyes suddenly open, and looking at her, and somehow even bluer than Garnet last recalled.

“I don't want to talk about that right now,” Garnet said evenly, her eyes sliding closed once more as a tiny wrinkle of a frown appeared between her brows.

Things were quiet for a long moment until Pearl finally spoke again, “It’s been a month since the incident…and two weeks since you’ve gone back to work, Garnet. I know you’ve heard  _ something  _ by no—”

A sigh heaved through Garnet’s lips and her dual colored eyes flickered open once more. Her jaw was tight and her gaze was haunted as she sat up straighter, jostling Pearl into sitting up as a result.

She scanned Pearl’s face as the shorter woman turned her torso to face her more fully. Worry lines creased Pearl's  otherwise smooth forehead, her eyes held dark circles beneath them, and her bottom lip was caught fretfully between her teeth.

Garnet rose a wet finger from the water to trace the freckles spattered across the pale woman's sharp nose.

Pearl's face scrunched adorably as a water droplet skirted down her lips.

The frown lines disappeared.

“I don't want to talk about her. Or what happened.”

  
Pearl turned the rest of her body, jostling the water surrounding them, until she was straddling Garnet’s shapely thighs to face her soulmate. The heat of the bath water made her skin a deep, flushed pink. Pearl traced her wet fingers over the sharp curve of Garnet’s collar bones and sent droplets dancing down between the valley of her full breasts.

 

“I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable— I just want to help you move on.”

 

“You are helping. You're here, and you're safe, and I’m safe, and I love you. So, I’m alright.” Garnet murmured a mere inch away from her lover’s lips.

 

Pearl leaned forward and dragged her lips over Garnet’s for a brief moment before capturing them with her own. Garnet exhaled through her nose and tightened her grip around Pearl’s waist. The pale woman tightened her legs around Garnet’s torso and brought her hands up to cup the detective’s warm neck.

 

Their lips parted with a gentle noise and she gazed into the ocean blue of Pearl’s eyes with an intensity that nearly startled her. A magnetic pull seemed to force their eyes onto each other, there was a buzzing sensation at the center of her forehead, and then Garnet was yanked back to a life long forgotten.

 

There was Pearl, a flowing dress twirling about her ankles as she danced through the freshly cut grass, and a bubbling laugh on her full lips. Her skin was darker then, like the warm brown of wet sand. Her hair was long, dark and wavy, splaying out proudly like a lion’s mane as she spun. She gripped the wide brimmed hat on her head as she went, trying so hard to keep it from flying from her head.

 

Garnet remembered the taste of peppermint leaves, and how she could always find it on Pearl’s lips.

 

Just as quickly, Garnet was yanked back to the present to find Pearl’s eyes glossed over in memory as well. When she finally came to, she looked at Garnet with even more wonder than before. Her cheeks were flushed a scalding shade of pink all the way up to the tips of her ears. A smile danced on her lips in amazement.

 

“Did you see…?” Pearl’s voice trailed off just slightly, her face alight. 

 

Garnet pressed her forehead against Pearl’s and a disbelieving laugh tumbled from her lips.

 

“You've always been so beautiful,” she sighed reverently, and Pearl’s face flushed scarlet even across the freckled bridge of her nose.

 

The bath water sloshed a bit as Pearl somehow pulled herself closer to her soulmate, gripping Garnet’s warm cheeks with her thin fingers. 

 

“I saw you with a sword,” Pearl giggled in wonder, scanning Garnet’s face with renewed joy.

 

“You were protecting me. I suppose it's becoming a pattern with us.” She smiled wryly.

 

Garnet leaned up to kiss her nose, “I saw you dancing on a lawn. I think the house was ours. You were just as graceful then, too.” She grinned, and Pearl couldn't resist capturing her full lips once more.

 

Their mouths moved together languidly, lovingly, and Pearl’s hands traveled down from Garnet’s cheeks, over her collarbones, and stopped at the swell of her breasts. Almost as if asking permission, her hands paused, and only resumed once Garnet arched her chest into her touch.

 

And their first time was filled with embarrassed, breathy laughs, and awkwardly bumping limbs that only fueled more giggles between them, and water that sloshed over the edge of the tub. Pearl couldn't last long if she tried, the way Garnet’s smoldering gaze hooked into her very being. Teetering over the edge felt like fuses blowing across the neighborhood through her veins. 

 

Garnet wasn't far behind, and Pearl’s keening moans and whispers of encouragement only hurdled her forward. She was Pearl’s opposite in that the brightest lights in the universe expanded behind her eyelids and careened down her spine only to explode in her stomach.

 

When they both opened their eyes, their gazes burned into each other as if no other moment mattered but that one.

 

Pearl didn't ask about Rose again, and Garnet held no intention of reminding her if the reason was that she forgot.

* * *

Amethyst was unwrapping her sore knuckles with her eyes trained evenly on Garnet’s distracted form. She threw the used tape over her her shoulder to land on the mat before huffing through her nose, “Dude, are you alright?”

 

Garnet glanced up, finally seeming to bring herself back into the present, and blinked several times.

 

“Yeah, fine, why?”

 

Amethyst’s lips twisted to the side and she tucked her fingers into the waistband of her exercise shorts— a habit of hers.

 

“You've been acting off since you got back. You didn't even kick my ass today. You always win when we spar against each other.”

 

“Just—tired’s all.” Garnet murmured distractedly as she unwrapped her own knuckles only to rub the soreness out of them. She flexed her hands outward and clenched them back into fists several times before shaking them out.

 

Amethyst took a hesitant step closer, a frown tugging at her thick eyebrows.

 

“You're not telling me something, G.”

 

Always straight to the point, that one. Garnet sighed.

 

“I met  _ Perri Doddard _ ,” Garnet spat the name, her jaw clenching as a natural reaction to the rage and shame that sparked below her skin at what happened to her the night she was taken. 

 

After a stretch of stunned silence, Garnet finally found it in herself to drag her gaze up from the floor mat to look at her close friend. Amethyst stood frozen at the center of the mat with her full lips partially open. A look Garnet couldn't place was flashing through her eyes, brows drawing into an even deeper frown as she eventually said, “You weren't going to say anything? When did you see her?” 

 

A bitter chuckle climbed from between Garnet’s lips as she let the tape from her knuckles flutter to the floor. “When I was kidnapped and bound to a chair. Interestingly, that makes an awful first impression.” 

 

Her dry humor toward the heavy information was clearly not very funny to Amethyst at all.

 

“ _ What are you talking about _ ?”

 

“Your  _ soulmate _ was the first person I saw when I woke up from being  _ kidnapped and held hostage _ .” Garnet’s frustration toward having to be the one to break the news paired with her anger at the entire event made her voice sharper than it needed to be.

 

“You're bullshitting. I don't know what kinda jokes you think you need to tell to cope with what happened to you, but they're not fucking funny.” Amethyst growled, turning her back to stalk toward the showers.

 

Garnet couldn't find it in herself to argue, and lowered herself down until she could lean against the corner mat of the medium sized ring.

 

Maybe she should have stayed off for a little longer. She was no good working like this.

 

Garnet sat there for who knew how long. Amethyst had long since showered, redressed in the locker room and slunk off toward the main building. Garnet could only stare into space, some random spot on the dirty mat beneath her, and dwell on events that seemed to simultaneously steal her fight and ignite her with rage.

 

She wanted someone to answer for what they'd done— what they’d  _ tried  _ to do.

 

She wanted someone to  _ pay _ .

 

“Garnet?”

 

Ruby stepped through the entrance in her decorated uniform, a worried crease between her full brows. The yellow overhead light cast a shadow beneath her eyes from such a distance, and Garnet couldn't help but feel that her mother was judging her— even secretly.

 

_ You're half the detective you used to be. Sitting on your ass, hiding, instead of on your case? What a joke. _

 

Garnet dropped her gaze back downward with a barely audible hum, and she heard Ruby’s booted footsteps draw closer until her mom was crouching down before her slumped body.

 

“I think you need to go home, honey. You can take more time off if you need—”

 

Garnet shot to her feet with a suddenness that almost knocked Ruby backward.

 

“I’m _not_ hiding. Not from anything— not anymore.”

 

She dropped down into a ready stance, and stared Ruby down as the shorter woman stood to her full height.

 

“Spar with me.” Garnet requested, a set look in her dual colored eyes that Ruby recognized instantly as the same expression she wore when she was eighteen years old— demanding she spar with her to sharpen her skills before her college boxing season began.

  
Ruby was vastly overdressed in her stuffy uniform, but she shrugged her vest off and folded it up off to the side before kicking off her dress shoes and socks off and placing them outside the ring. She watched Garnet with worry dancing through her brown eyes, but planted her feet in her ready stance anyway. 

 

Garnet had learned many forms of fighting over the years— as had Ruby, but she hadn't practiced in far too long. It had never stopped her from planting her stepdaughter into the mat, though. 

 

Garnet made the first strike, her fists whizzing through the air with a speed that would have taken Ruby off guard were not for her quick reflexes. She spun out of the way and dropped low with her leg extended to sweep Garnet’s feet from beneath her. 

 

The taller woman fell onto her back, but used that momentum to arch up with nothing but the strength of her abdomen and plant her feet back on the floor, upright. She threw Ruby a quick attack and was promptly blocked before the older woman grabbed her arms and spun her until she was in a headlock. 

 

Ruby’s hand that wasn't around her neck applied faint pressure to the back of her head, and suddenly Garnet was right back in that warehouse. Her eyes scanned the far wall, completely trusting of the woman behind her, but that phantom pain of the memory licked through her skull with so much force that she went limp in Ruby’s arms.

 

Garnet felt Ruby’s hands leave her body only to return moments later, pressing to her forehead and neck. Her voice rushed worried words across her face, but she couldn't focus on them— all she felt was her throat constricting and she was  _ suffocating— _

 

_ “ _ Garnet!” 

 

Ruby’s voice drifted in long enough to provide an anchor, but it slipped through her grasp as if her mind were made of sand. Stars, she couldn't fucking  _ breathe _ .

 

Something cold pressed to her forehead that felt so good, air practically dove into her lungs. She sucked at the air like a woman starved for it, and realized she was on her back with Ruby worriedly hovering over her— a water bottle pressed to her forehead.

 

Her cheeks shone with tears in the yellow overhead light, and Garnet reached up to wipe them away, causing Ruby to laugh a bit through her crying.

 

“Leave it to you to have a panic attack and try to comfort  _ me _ .”

 

“Sorry,” Garnet croaked out, tilting her eyes up until they stared at the ceiling. Her apology wasn't for comforting her mother, but for demanding they fight, for being stubborn and going back to work before she was ready, for not having seen the signs— whatever they might have been— that Rose was not on their side.

 

“Don't apologize, baby. Come on, let's get you back home, okay? Take all the time you need. These stiff collared killjoys will still be here solving crimes when you get back.”

 

Garnet nodded and curled up into Ruby’s chest as she pulled her stepdaughter in close. Her heartbeat was strong and lulling, and she was so grateful she had someone as understanding as Ruby for a step-mother.

 

It wasn't until they were in the car, halfway back to Garnet’s house, when the younger woman spoke again.

 

“Will you and mom have dinner with Pearl and I soon? I— I really want you both to meet her.” Her voice sounded so small and frail, but she knew it was just her ears playing tricks. She would get through this.

 

“Of course, sweetheart. Whenever you're ready. Sapphy and I have been going a little crazy with what we think she looks like. So far she's a twenty foot giant woman with a blonde afro, a rotatable upper body and four arms. Are we close?”

 

A laugh tore through Garnet’s chest unexpectedly, and she welcomed the sound and feeling with open ears and arms.

  
“Yeah, something like that.” Garnet grinned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been trying to only update once I have the chapter after the one being uploaded completed, but chapter 6 is kicking my ass and I didn't want to keep you all waiting, so I hope you've enjoyed chapter 5!
> 
> Thanks so much for reading and for the kind comments and kudos. I really do appreciate hearing what you all think of this story/ how much you like it. 
> 
> You know where to find me on tumblr by now. Come say hey :)


	6. Soul Bombing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is piling up, and Garnet just needs some time.

**_1999_ **

_ “Pearl?” _

 

_ Magenta's voice was weary, and Pearl barely raised her head up from her homework packet. Addition and subtraction of two digit numbers— a challenge she had mastered far before the rest of her classmates. She picked up her juice box in the free hand that didn't hold her pencil and took a sip before setting it back down. _

 

_ “My Pearl?” _

 

_ Pearl finally looked up, having finished one more problem in the packet—six more to go— and met the sullen eyes of one Magenta Cabot. _

 

_ And the worried gaze of Rose Quintella trained on her mother. _

 

_ “Mommy has some news, okay? I want you to listen to me, honey. The homework can wait.” _

 

_ Pearl put her pencil down with a huff and swung her legs against the front of the chair impatiently. She just wanted to go back to work. Her mom would leave her alone to spend time with Rose soon enough, anyway. _

 

_ Magenta made her way to the living room table and squatted down beside Pearl’s chair. Her round, blue eyes watched her mother indifferently as she pushed a small hand across her forehead to cast her flyaways aside. _

 

_ “Mommy’s going to be working from home for now on, okay? That means I get to spend more time with you, honey, isn't that great?” Magenta’s pink lips curled into a small smile, a light of hope in a dark tunnel. _

 

_ Pearl didn't trust its brilliance. _

 

_ “Okay.” She shrugged, and turned her small body in the chair to move and pick her pencil back up, only to be stopped by the warm hand of her mother.  _

 

_ Blue eyes turned to meet sad brown ones, and Magenta tilted her head forward to press it to Pearl’s. Next, her warm hands were pressed to either of her cheeks and she locked gazes with her mother. _

 

_ “I never meant to spend so much time away from you, Pearl. I— there's no excuse, but I will make it up to you. I promise.” _

 

_ The spark of light at the end of the tunnel burst into a bright flame, and Pearl reached out to it hesitantly. She swallowed, searching the brown eyes in front of her. _

 

_ “You'll stay?” Her voice was merely a whisper in the small space between them, but the question itself drove a droplet of a tear from Magenta’s right eye. _

 

_ Magenta nodded several times and raised her head to press a kiss against the center of Pearl’s forehead. _

 

_ “Yes, my Pearl. I promise.” She pulled away to hold the youth-rounded face of her daughter and Pearl saw her watery gaze and hopeful features. _

 

_ Her blue eyes lifted to rest over her mother’s shoulder and she locked gazes with Rose, standing off to the side with her arms crossed over her generous chest. She looked guilty, like she wanted to say something— apologize for stealing her mother away for years, maybe— but Rose merely dropped her eyes with a frown. _

 

_ Pearl looked back to her mother and leaned forward to press a forgiving kiss on her tan cheek. A breath of relief floated through her mother’s lips and another tear escaped with it. _

 

_ “When’s momma coming home?” _

 

_ “Soon, honey. She's on her way.” _

 

_ Magenta stood up and brushed her tears away with the backs of her fingers, turning to gather the bags she had dropped at the door and bring them into the house. _

 

_ “Can she work from home, too?” _

 

_ Magenta stopped in her tracks to look down at her daughter with sad eyes and a small smile.  _

 

_ “How about we ask her? And if she can't, maybe she can take some time off to be home with us. How's that sound?” _

 

_ Pearl felt her smile tug at her entire face as she beamed up at her mother with an enthusiastic nod. She picked her pencil back up with renewed vigor and swept through the last six problems in minutes. _

 

**March 24, 2016 - 6:43pm**

 

_ “Six affected by the terrorist attack of what officials are calling ‘Soul Bombing.’ The group of attackers are reported to have targeted a rally for the equality of those with and without soulmates by throwing cans of gas into the crowd. We’re still receiving word on the effects, but so far it seems to not only sever soul bonds, but completely erase the name or names from the victim's hands. We’ll have full time coverage on this tragedy as the night goes on, stay tuned for more details.” _

 

**March 24, 2016 - 4:19pm**

 

Garnet knew she should have been at home.

 

She was in no condition to be out in a protest on that unusually warm Saturday, but she had insisted and Pearl couldn't stop her. The air was still as throngs of people marched through the bright city streets with signs in their hands, anger in their eyes and chants on their lips. Pearl had marched right at Garnet’s side, outwardly gushing over finally being able to attend a protest with her soulmate.

 

Pearl’s shoulder brushed against Garnet’s with every step as their feet dragged slowly over the asphalt. The sheer number of people had caused a very slow moving march, but the message was loud and clear. The sun beat on their foreheads and arms and reflected brightly off of the white paper of many signs scattered across the crowd. Pearl turned her excited face up and Garnet watched a slight frown appear on a pale forehead.

 

“I need coffee.” The shorter woman stated, causing Garnet to look down into her pale blue eyes with an amused smile curving her full lips upward.

 

“I figured you would eventually. You didn't come to bed until almost three in the morning.”

 

“I had to finish my essay.” Pearl groaned, and Garnet could only laugh at the exasperation on her face. The sound felt foreign in her throat, but she welcomed it nonetheless.

 

“What street are we on? Isn't there a cafe by here?” 

 

Garnet glanced around, eyes squinting against the sun even behind her circular sunglasses. Even with her height, she had to stand on the tips of her toes to get a good look at the street sign further down the block.

 

“This is...State street. There should be one a block down.”

 

Pearl grabbed her hand in the one that wasn't holding up a sign and started pulling Garnet out of the street and onto the sidewalk. Their steps were leisurely, and in sync, much to Garnet’s amusement.

 

“When did you write your speech? I had no idea you were gonna speak earlier.” Garnet said eventually, looking down at sunlight gleaming off of downy, strawberry blonde hair.

 

“I’ve had it written for a while now. I was waiting for the right time to give it, and the march today seemed… fitting. I was so honored when the organizers asked me to speak.”

 

“Everyone looked very impressed with you. Inspired, actually.” 

 

Pearl turned to look at Garnet with a small, bashful smile playing on her thinner, pink lips.

 

“Even you?”

 

Garnet tightened her hand around Pearl’s clammy one and flashed her a grin, “Especially me.”

 

They passed by hordes of chanting people of all backgrounds, colors and sizes, all marching for the same cause. 

 

Pearl stepped forward upon reaching the cafe and held the door open for Garnet, who flashed her a wink as she stepped ahead. The line was wrapped around the inside of the building and a deflated sigh exited Pearl’s mouth as they made their way to the end of it. 

 

Garnet allowed a playful smile to show on her face as she looked down at Pearl, “I could always flash my badge to get to the front.”

 

The pale woman released an appalled gasp and hit Garnet’s upper arm out of reflex.

 

“You can't  _ do  _ that!” She whisper-yelled. “Why do you even have your badge on you? You're on leave.”

 

Dual colored eyes rolled with a small laugh as Garnet leaned back on her heels and shoved her hands into the deep pockets of her jacket.

 

“I’m just messing. Though, I  _ have  _ done it before.” She smirked.

 

“ _ Garnet _ !”

 

“ _ What?”  _ Garnet laughed even louder, and Pearl stopped whatever she was about to say next and merely stared up at her with awe in her watering eyes.

 

The dark skinned woman watched in shock before reaching forward to brush a stray tear from her pink tinted cheek, “What's wrong? What did I say?”

 

“Nothing! No, I’m just— so happy that you're doing better. I was starting to think I’d never see you smile or laugh like this again.”

 

The line moved up several steps and they both followed it without breaking their gazes. Garnet leaned down and pressed her full lips to the smooth skin of Pearl’s forehead, lingering there for a while longer than usual. Pearl leaned up into her touch and released a heavy sigh that seemed to dispel all of the tension in her back and shoulders.

 

“I thought so, too. I wanted to thank you agai—”

 

Piercing screams bounded through the streets directly outside of the window they stood next to. The slow moving march had turned into a stampede of panicked feet. One shorter boy lost his grip on the hand of an older man in front of him and was instantaneously trampled by the crowd. Another mass of people shoved each other out of the way to escape as a hooded figure with a bandana wrapped around the bottom half of their face tossed another can of the gas into the crowd. Dual colored eyes scanned the rest of the street and counted at least five other hooded faces placed strategically around the block. The baristas in the cafe had stopped what they were doing and stared out of the floor to ceiling windows in the same stunned silence as the customers standing in line and sitting in booths. 

 

Garnet felt her heart jump into her chest and she sprinted without even thinking to the door of the cafe, shoving shocked patrons out of her path that were too panicked to say anything to her about it. 

 

Her feet halted in their tracks, though, when she saw what followed. A plume of yellow-tinted gas snaked upward from the city street, sending everyone in the vicinity bolting as far away from it as possible. Those who couldn't escape fast enough crumpled to the asphalt and gripped their heads as if suffering tremendous pain, and Garnet only knew she would be no help to anyone if she walked directly into the gas. 

 

So she stood at the window, Pearl at her side with her hands clamped over her mouth and tears streaking down her eyes and every other patron crowding around them, as the unlucky victims dropped like flies, writhing on the ground.

 

Even when she  _ could  _ help, she was helpless.

 

And that fact was enough to send Garnet spiraling back into silence.

 

**March 30, 2016**

 

“Sweetheart, can you pass me the parmesan? Garnet. Garnet? Pearl could you reach over and hand it— thank you.”

 

“Garnet?”

 

Garnet’s eyes fluttered for a moment as she seemed to get sucked back into the present. Pearl ran her gaze over her soulmate’s tired face and felt a sinking in her gut to witness her falling so far behind the progress she had made in the past few weeks. The skin beneath her eyes was just slightly darker than the rest of her face, and when she looked up Pearl could see the tired lines forming bags under her dual colored gaze. 

 

She was zoned out more often than not, her eyes always glazing over while a frown tugged at her brows as if recalling something painful.

 

Garnet had yet to tell anyone exactly what happened that night she was taken. Rose had seemingly fallen off the face of the earth, and everyone else was just trying to hold Garnet together while she crumbled over not being able to help them. 

 

“Maybe tonight was a bad time—” Pearl started, looking apologetically into the kind eyes of Ruby and Sapphire around the table.

 

“No, I’m fine. Sorry.” Garnet murmured, her eyes downcast as she raised her fork and twirled a bit of pasta onto it. She forced it into her mouth and chewed as if feasting on cardboard.

 

“Garnet, maybe you should talk about this with someone. Not necessarily with us, but one of my colleagues would have sessions with you on the house. She owes me a favor.” Sapphire suggested, her single eye a dazzling hazel that looked sadly upon her daughter. The other was bound behind an obsidian eyepatch that wrapped around her sandy brown, straightened hair. 

 

Pearl watched Garnet draw her eyes back up toward Sapphire as a frown deeply creased the skin between her brows.

 

“Excuse me, but absolutely not.” Garnet’s voice had gone from meek and subdued to sharp and serrated. Pearl felt her pulse jump at the sudden change of energy in the spacious dining room.

 

“Garnet-”

 

“ _ No _ . I’m not some weak child who can’t take care of herself. I’m an adult woman, and I’m telling you  _ I don’t need that. _ ” The conviction ringing through Garnet’s voice sent chills down Pearl’s arms as she watched those tired eyes across the table glare into her mother’s single one. This was the most life she had shown since the attack downtown, and she was using it to lash out against her  _ mother _ , of all people.

 

“Watch your tone,” Ruby frowned at her daughter, one hand instinctively reaching out to comfort her illegitimate wife. Sapphire waved the affection off, staring with a calm eye into her daughter’s bristled form. 

 

“Okay. No therapy.”

 

Ruby looked over at Sapphire in shock, as did Pearl, at how easily the long haired woman gave up her suggestion.

 

“Tell me what you  _ do _ need.” Sapphire said instead, folding her small hands atop the table with a patience and understanding that cast a blanket of cool across the previously tense room. Garnet responded to the atmosphere as well.

 

“I need time.” She sighed, eyes betraying any guilt she felt for lashing out just moments ago. 

 

Sapphire reached across the rounded dining room table to put her hand over Garnet’s larger one. There was an unspoken channel of communication between them, between mother and daughter, that Pearl and Ruby were left outside of. Pearl watched the exchange that lasted no longer than a handful of seconds, but the way Garnet’s shoulders deflated and her eyes held a bit more spark than before said it all.

  
_ “Take all the time you need,” _ Sapphire seemed to convey in her intimidatingly leveled gaze, and Pearl began to learn the power of silence. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So SO sorry for the wait. Life got very hectic very quickly and this has been the absolute last thing on my to-do list, but I was thinking about it all the time. I've been sitting on this chapter for a while because I actually wanted to add at least one more scene to it, but you all have waited enough, so here it is. I have time time to write for a bit, so I'll try and get chapter 7 finished before I go MIA again.
> 
> Thanks for reading, much love!
> 
> Let me know what you thought in a comment, and hit me up on tumblr (bakedgarnet.tumblr.com) for anything!


	7. Fusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pearl has a one-on-one with Ruby, the rest of Garnet's kidnapping is revealed, and... fusion?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flashbacks are in italics.

Pearl walked briskly into the police station, heading straight back to the intimidating metallic glint of elevator doors. She saw her reflection warped and distorted as she went. The only thing that broke her faux confident stride was the voice of a receptionist from the front desk, “Ma'am? Can I help you?”

 

Pearl stopped in her tracks and went rigid for a moment before turning to look toward the voice with embarrassment tinting her cheeks pink. It was a different person than the woman she had spoken with before, back when she was searching for Garnet.

 

While Garnet was kidnapped, being  _ attacked _ —

 

“I’m here to see Lieutenant Ruby…”

 

“Your name?”

 

“Pearl Cabot… I have an appointment.”

 

The brown skinned receptionist typed away at the keyboard at his fingertips for a little while before nodding to himself and making eye contact with Pearl again.

 

“Yes, Ms. Cabot. I’ll let her know you're on your way up. Take the elevator to the tenth floor.” His voice was deep, but calming, and Pearl felt herself relax a bit.

 

She shot a tense smile in his general direction and continued toward the elevator, pressing the upward arrow and waiting practically no time for the doors to open wide.

 

The tenth floor was full of desks with office chairs not occupied by their owners. All of the detectives bustled about the room working with teams or partners on different cases. 

 

Some stood at white boards with post it notes and photographs linked together in an intricate web of connections by different colored dry-erase markers. Others were bowed over tables sorting through evidence and pouring over maps. Everyone was hard at work, living off of the constantly going pot of coffee to the side and the hectic energy of the room. 

 

The window blinds were drawn shut, and the floor was bathed in artificial fluorescent light. The air was thick with the scent of brewing coffee, the faint mint of chewing gum, and the nose-tickling sweetness of cliched donuts. An empty box of them sat ransacked and folded over in a nearby garbage can amongst empty paper cups of coffee from a cafe around the corner. 

 

Blue eyes scanned the detectives from head to toe in their simple dress shirts and slacks with even simpler dress shoes on their feet. She wondered where were their sneakers, lest they go on some high speed foot-chase with a suspect. Perhaps they changed before they left the building, and the dress shoes were merely dress code. 

 

A woman with curly hair shorter than her own and skin the red-brown color of Garnet’s hair beneath the sun brushed past Pearl in a whirlwind of perfume and dire words spoken so quickly into a cellphone that Pearl couldn't even understand her. 

 

In curiosity, she turned to look where the lady was off to and was jarred a bit by the sight ahead of her. Two other women identical to the first were in the midst of heated discussion as one pointed to several photographs on the whiteboard and their connections to whatever was scrawled out on a red post-it note. Before she could stare much longer though, Ruby’s voice cut through her confusion.

 

“Pearl! My office is over here!”

 

Pearl snapped her head toward the voice and her feet carried her to the heavy, frosted glass door that served as the entrance to Ruby’s office. Once the door was closed behind her, Ruby’s gentle voice carried across the room.

 

“Thank you for coming. Please, have a seat.”

 

Pearl lowered herself into a cushy leather office chair across from Ruby’s desk with a fragile timidity that reminded the shorter woman of a small bird. Pearl’s legs crossed daintily and the one on top bounced in nervousness.

 

“I’m assuming you know why I called you down here?”

 

Pearl simply stared for a beat before warily shaking her head ‘no.’

 

“I have… pertinent information regarding the possible charges brought against you for the felony of vandalizing government property. The guys downstairs are getting closer and closer to putting a face to your little art project, and I’m trying to stop that from happening because Garnet loves you and I think you're a good kid.”

 

Pearl’s eyes widened a bit at all of the information, and she floundered for a second before finally responding.

 

“What— what did you find? I thought they were done looking—”

 

“Those cameras missing footage from that night? Whoever you hired to loop the tapes didn't account for the ones on the apartment complex across the street. If my team could find those in a matter of hours, imagine how long it'll take the boys downstairs to put two and two together.”

 

Pearl’s mouth hung partially open as her fingers gripped like vices atop her own thighs. Finally releasing a deep breath, she met Ruby’s warm eyes again and swallowed heavily before speaking.

 

“So, what do I do?”

 

Ruby glanced toward the heavy, blurred glass of her office door to ensure it was closed tightly before leaning a bit over her desk and dropping her voice conspiratorially. Pearl could hardly hear the words herself, and her only aid was being able to watch Ruby’s lips as she spoke.

 

“I am only going to say this once, so listen  _ very  _ carefully.”

 

Pearl nodded quickly, eyes focused and ears strained.

 

“You need to contact whoever you hired or asked for help the first time to do a thorough sweep of  _ all _ of the cameras on that block. No building or street camera should go unchecked. Erase everything,” Ruby’s face was intense, the deep brown of her eyes looking almost black in the way the overhead light threw her gaze into shadow.

 

“It'll look suspicious,” Ruby shrugged, “but there’ll be no way to link you. The city’s already sent a cleanup team to paint over the graffiti, and it’s rained twice since the incident so any physical evidence shouldn't be an issue. Do you understand?”

 

Pearl nodded again, and the strawberry blonde wisps of hair framing her face danced around her jaw and cheekbones like marionette strings. 

 

“I’ll handle the rest,” Ruby announced before leaning back in her cushy office chair with her hands rested over the muscled planes of her stomach through her dress shirt.

 

Pearl didn't want to know what  _ the rest  _ was, so she didn't ask. Instead, Ruby filled the silence with idle chit chat about Pearl’s life and Garnet’s mental health for the next half hour to fill the time she had reserved for their “appointment.”

 

When Pearl finally exited Ruby’s office, it was as if stepping out into another world. The bustle of the detectives tirelessly at work outside of Ruby’s heavy office door had not ceased in her absence.

 

The group of  _ triplets _ she had noticed before, however, were the only ones who caught her attention. With a look of suppressed wonder on her face, she discreetly stared at them a bit longer before one seemed to feel her gaze and look up.

 

Their eyes met directly, and one of the three women with short, curly hair, brown skin and a pretty smile waved kindly at Pearl from across the room. Pearl raised her hand slightly and returned an embarrassed smile and wave in return before turning on her heel and walking toward the elevator.

* * *

Bellamy Diez was regal in her own right, head held high and gaze always distanced. Her steps were like feathers landing atop creeks, and the haughty arcs of her cheekbones were enough to send even the most boisterous people into awed silence. Not much got past her; being a lawyer trained her to always be five steps ahead of anyone she came into contact with.

 

Yet there was an exception to that rule: the love of her life, Magenta Cabot, her wife for all intents and purposes despite the blatant lack of legally-binding papers.

 

And so when Magenta walked through the front door with Pearl at her side and a grave look on both of their similar faces, Bellamy had no idea what to expect.

 

“We have a problem,” Magenta began, pulling Pearl in by her upper arm as the younger woman seemed to sag with guilt.

 

Bellamy set down her glass of wine with a controlled precision that never betrayed the anxiety swirling in her gut. Her long, elegant hands folded neatly atop the table as she lifted her gaze to her family and fixed them with all of her attention.

 

“Which would be what, my love?” She asked, her voice as low and smooth as honey.

 

“Your daughter has put this entire country in danger.” Magenta huffed in frustration, turning to look at Pearl for a long moment before swinging her gaze back around to her wife.

 

“Oh? So she's  _ my _ daughter when she puts this country in jeopardy, but  _ yours _ when she graduates as valedictorian of her high school class?” Bellamy allowed a slow smile to creep across her full lips teasingly.

 

Magenta paused in her tracks, “Well, yes. But that's not the point!”

 

Bellamy’s enveloping chuckle floated across the room and danced in the other woman’s ears. She gestured for her wife to continue talking, “Well, now that I know the rules, go on.”

 

“The very delicate and  _ elaborate _ plan we had in place to cut off the Resistance’s sources and starve them out until we could lead an ambush has been thwarted by  _ your _ own daughter.”

 

Pearl groaned and pushed her wiry fingers through the thin wisps of her hair.

 

“How was I supposed to know not to do something about what I thought was a stray drug cartel? You two never tell me  _ anything _ ,” Pearl began, pulling away from Magenta to pace back and forth, “I had no idea there  _ was  _ a Resistance, let alone that they would be gone from the warehouse, ready to ambush Garnet. Otherwise I wouldn't have left the fucking tip!”

 

“Watch your mouth,” Bellamy murmured as a reflex. 

 

“Sorry,” Pearl muttered. “Anyway, I was under the impression that they'd get raided and this would all finally be over. There was no way I could have accounted for Garnet’s partner being the same Rose we've been trying to catch.”

 

Bellamy unfolded and folded her hands back again as she considered the information for a long moment. Eventually she raised her gaze back up to the two women in front of her and asked, “Where is Rose now?”

 

Pearl sighed in exasperation and rubbed her hand over her eye as if there was something in it, “No one knows. She's gone off the grid. And she  _ hurt Garnet _ , so we need to find her yesterday!”

 

“Magenta.” Bellamy started, picking her glass back up to raise the red liquid back to her lips.

 

Magenta nodded twice and turned her understanding eyes onto her daughter with a sad smile at her lips. “I know you want to get her, probably more than we do now that she's harmed someone important to you, but we think you should sit this one out. It's too personal now.”

 

“Too personal? She was your student! Hell, she was practically your protege! If anyone's too close to this, it's you.” Pearl stood rigidly as she defiantly stared down her mother despite the older woman being nearly a foot taller than her. 

 

Magenta nodded slowly, raising her hands to grip Pearl’s shoulders lightly. “That's why Bellamy’s going to track down Rose. If you would've let me finish, I was going to suggest that you and I handle the rest of her little group, Dionne and Summer.”

 

Pearl seemed to deflate at the suggestion, all of the fight directed toward her mother suddenly without a target. “Oh,” Pearl murmured, “yeah, I can do that.”

 

A long moment passed before she continued, “What about Garnet? This whole thing has really messed her up, and I think it would give her some closure to be able to put an end to this herself.”

 

Magenta turned her eyes onto her wife, and a look between them sent back and forth an entire conversation before Bellamy nodded once from behind the tilt of her wine glass.

 

Pearl’s next exhale was a sigh of relief.

* * *

_ Garnet thrashed against the cold hand digging its sharp nails into her jaw. She tucked the horrendous pill beneath her tongue, nestled into the softest part behind her bottom teeth, and steeled herself to not swallow until she could get free and spit it out. _

 

_ “Restrain her!”  _

 

_ The fingers gripping her face morphed into an arm around her neck in a chokehold that shoved the air from her lungs. With her hands restrained behind the chair, there was no way to even tug at the arm for some sort of leeway. Garnet felt her face rush with heat as the blood above her neck got trapped in her head. She nearly spit out the pill as well, but she valiantly held on as not to alert her captors to her ploy. _

 

_ They'd make sure she swallowed it a second time. _

 

_ Her legs kicked about since she couldn't move her arms, and eventually even that slowed to an inconsistent thumping of the floor with her foot. _

 

_ She felt light headed, and the room around her, while bathed in the overhead light, began to dim around the edges. _

 

_ If she died right then, she wanted Pearl to know how much she loved her. With her last bit of energy, Garnet sent out wave after wave of affection toward the other woman through their bond’s link.  _

 

I’ll find you again, Pearl, like I always do. I promise.

 

_ Garnet was suddenly yanked back toward consciousness as a sharp, panicked voice, Perri’s, cut through the fog in her brain like a knife through butter. _

 

“You're killing her!”

 

_ The arm around her neck disappeared and the rush of air that immediately went up Garnet’s nose nearly made her choke on her own saliva building steadily in her shut mouth. She soldiered through her burning lungs and took in as much air through her nose as she could. _

 

_ “We have to return her alive! Or have you both forgotten the bounty we'll have on our heads if we kill a  _ detective _?”  _

 

_ The yellow haired woman paced back and forth across the small bedroom and eyed Garnet for a long time. The detective sneered in her direction, gaze burning with utter hatred. _

 

_ Garnet took a quick glance around the room and weighed her options next. She refused to give the women in the room the ability to decide her fate any further. As they deliberated on the best way to get her unconscious and back to the building they kidnapped her from, Garnet formulated a plan. _

 

_ The next time any of them advanced close enough to her, she'd make her move. _

 

_ The first was Perri, looking to inject something into the side of her neck to knock her unconscious while they transported her body.  _

 

_ Garnet heaved herself to her feet and stumbled backward with all of her strength to hopefully break the legs of the wooden chair against the wall behind her. Perri’s shock rendered her own body motionless before she jolted forward to stop Garnet. _

 

_ The chair legs cracked a bit under the force, but Garnet quickly bashed them against the wall a second time and two of them clattered to the floor. Once Perri got too close for comfort, Garnet whirled around and knocked the short woman to the side with the remaining chair legs behind her body.  _

 

_ Perri crashed into the cluttered vanity mirror, knocking the flickering candles they'd neglected to blow out to the floor. The rug beneath their feet caught fire when one of the candles landed face down, and while she was preoccupied with putting it out before it blazed into an inferno, Garnet was easily able to run at Dionne next and push her into the yellow haired woman so that they both went down. _

 

_ Garnet ran at the open door and spared a second to look around and figure out where the closest exit was, and as she decided that she needed to head downstairs to the first floor of the house, a sharp clawed hand was on her back and shoving her down fifteen steps. _

 

_ All she could think on the way down was:  _ Don't swallow, don't swallow, don't swallow...

 

_ Without her hands free to stop her fall or protect her head, all parts of her body slammed into a sharp surface on her descent, and at some point, after the back of her head smacked into the wall at the bottom of the stairs, her world went dark. _

* * *

Garnet jolted up from her bed with a sharp cry, and her hands immediately went to the back of her head. Her breaths wracked through her lungs unevenly, and the way her hands shook forced her to shove them between her thighs until they stopped. She pulled her legs up to her chest and dropped her forehead down until it pressed, hard surface against hard surface, to her knees.

 

To her right, Pearl stirred a bit before inhaling sharply and sitting up. Her gaze immediately went to Garnet’s hunched form and the instinct to comfort came over her like second nature. 

 

Her pale hands stroked Garnet’s taut back, massaging soothing circles into the skin between her shoulder blades and downward along her spine. She went back up to the taller woman's trapezius muscle and squeezed, causing Garnet to release a long groan of pleasure.

 

A long, silent moment passed until Garnet finally lifted her head and gazed at her soulmate with tired eyes. Pearl graciously accepted the silence, the communication with nothing but droopy gazes and sleepy smiles. Garnet leaned forward and pressed her lips to Pearl’s with a hesitancy that spoke to her deteriorated confidence. 

 

She was doubting herself.

 

Pearl’s hand rose cautiously to press to the back of Garnet’s neck. Her fingers curled delicately into the full curls at the nape of her neck and she deepened the kiss with the unspoken assurance that, yes, things would be okay soon enough.

 

No, there was no rush for things to get better.

 

Yes, she loved her.

 

No, she wasn’t going anywhere.

 

Pearl felt her slowly, tentatively, melt into her touch until they were pressed into each other so deeply it was hard to tell where she ended and Garnet began. A shaky breath washed against her neck when they finally broke away for air, and she could feel Garnet’s smile curving upward against her skin. 

 

A burst of  _ joy _ blossomed in the pit of her stomach like a phantom limb, and she knew without asking that it was from Garnet. 

 

_ She  _ was able to do that for her soulmate.

 

That power was an incredible one to wield, one that Pearl refused to take for granted. The longer they stayed connected, intertwined within each other’s embrace, the thicker the cord connecting their souls together became. There was a sensation of a balloon expanding in the center of their foreheads, and right when the pressure seemed like it would become too much, light burst behind their eyelids as if sharing consciousness. 

 

Pearl could feel herself in Garnet’s body as much as she could feel her own. She could lift Garnet’s arm with her own mind if she wanted to, if she weren’t so shocked that the sensation was over as quickly as it began. 

 

Whatever melding of existence, or perhaps  _ fusion _ was a better word for it, just happened… 

It blew both of them away. The two women jolted away from each other as quickly as the sensation had disappeared, and locked eyes in mutual shock. Garnet’s mouth hung open, her eyes wide and her brows hiked upward. A stray curl had slipped from beneath the silk bonnet over her mane of hair, and Pearl had half a mind to reach out and put it back had she not been so shocked herself. 

 

“That’s… new,” Pearl breathed in the otherwise silent room.

 

A sharp laugh slipped, unexpected, from Garnet’s lips.

  
Garnet decided she liked that sound, followed by the tinkling chime of Pearl’s own giggle, a little bit more than silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and keeping up with this story! I appreciate every comment you all leave, they really do make my day, so thanks for that too. Any questions, comments, etc you can leave in a comment or throw 'em my way on Tumblr (bakedgarnet.tumblr.com).
> 
> Much love!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pearl needs to meet up with the rogue Perri Doddard, much to Garnet's dismay. Pearlnet discovers a soulmate telepathy feature to their bond.

Pearl paced back and forth across Garnet’s living room as rain beat the windows relentlessly so early in the day. She had postponed contacting her tech genius source for a week now, and Ruby was getting antsy. There was only so much she could do from her executive position until things were out of her hands and Pearl went to prison. Her dilemma was not necessarily getting in contact with her source, but the identity of the woman.  

 

Ever since the night she found Garnet bruised and traumatized in the warehouse, she had neglected to initiate contact for one simple reason:

 

Perri Doddard aided in kidnapping and harming her soulmate.

 

The betrayal of going to her for help would probably destroy her and Garnet’s relationship, though  _ not  _ doing so would put her in extreme danger of losing her freedom. Unless she talked to Garnet first— explained that this was using Perri’s abilities for the sole purpose of her own gain.

 

A groan escaped her lips. That didn’t even  _ sound  _ like it would play out well.

 

Garnet’s keys turning in the front door, paired with a crack of thunder, made Pearl’s feet freeze beneath her. Her heart pounded in her ears as she watched the heavy wood swing in toward the inside of the apartment. Garnet stepped over the threshold with a tired smile on her full lips, a drenched umbrella that she shook out in the hall, and curves engulfed in a loose sundress that breezed around her as she moved. She wiped the bottom of her shoes on the mat before toeing them off against the wall.

 

Blue eyes locked on her outfit with a start. It was such a different look than usual that Pearl was caught off guard, though the look was  _ certainly  _ not unwanted. Forgetting her previous worries, Pearl took several steps forward and gripped Garnet’s wide hips in her wiry fingers. With her bottom lip wedged between her teeth, Pearl’s eyes hungrily drank in her soulmate from a much closer distance.

 

“Garnet, you look…” Pearl shook her head as she grasped for an appropriate word, “delectable.” 

 

A maroon blush colored the taller woman’s brown cheeks as she flashed a hint of a smile and leaned down to press her lips to Pearl’s in greeting. “Thank you. I missed you.”

 

Pearl couldn't stop her eyes from roving Garnet’s body, and it took a moment before she caught herself. What was going on? Ever since their “fusion” a few nights ago, the sexual tension between the both of them had been at its peak. Pearl thought it was merely a coincidence; of course, when  _ wasn’t _ she this attracted to Garnet, but something about this attraction felt different. It coincided with the exact moment the separation headaches ended. Perhaps their bodies just wanted to be even  _ closer _ together.

 

Shaking off the distracting thoughts, she locked her eyes back onto Garnet’s. “I missed you too, but…” she paused, “I do have something to tell you and— please don't be mad.”

 

Garnet hesitantly stepped around her after locking the door back and slowly sat down on the cushy living room couch, dropping her purse down on the table. “Alright, what's wrong?”

 

Pearl began in a rush, “So my tech source that cleared the video footage of me vandalizing city hall was Perri Doddard, and she forgot to account for the cameras in the apartment complex across the street, which means there might be even  _ more _ she missed, and I need to contact her to wipe the rest, but it feels like a betrayal to you considering what happened, and who's to say she'd even help me anyway now that she's with Rose’s literal  _ terrorist _ organization—” Pearl stopped herself with a large breath and deflated at Garnet’s unchanged expression.

 

Her soulmate’s eyes were unimpressed, and Pearl tried to reach out with her mind and feel for whatever Garnet was feeling, but she came up empty. Was she blocking her out, or was Garnet truly just indifferent?

 

“Call and ask. I’m sure you'll figure it out,” Garnet finally said with a half shrug, her gaze unwavering as she stood.

 

“Come on, Garnet,” Pearl reached out and grabbed her arm as she stood from the couch to walk away. The taller woman turned around in her grip and looked down at her with deep breaths, and flared nostrils, and a gaze that held the heat of rolling lava.

 

“From what it sounds like, my personal feelings don't matter because it's either you do this or get put away for the felony you committed, so  _ call her _ .” Their eye contact was strong, and  _ heavy _ , before she gently turned her arm out of Pearl’s limp grasp and began walking toward the kitchen.

 

“Garnet…” Pearl called as she followed her. She didn't know what else to say; somehow getting permission felt like a reprimand, and it wasn't the reaction she was expecting at all.

 

Pearl could feel the exact moment Garnet stopped blocking her out. All of her swirling emotions dumped into the bond between them instantly and knocked Pearl backward a couple of steps with their potency. 

 

Laced within all of the pain, fear and anger— lust.

 

Getting her bearings, Pearl stepped even more determinedly after her. “Would you just talk to me? I understand that you want to be the bigger person here and only see the logical side, but your personal feelings  _ do  _ matter. They matter to me.”

 

Garnet’s strong hands gripped the counter top as she bowed her head down toward the wall cabinets. Releasing a deep breath through her full lips, she finally looked up at Pearl, who had an awfully difficult time keeping her eyes from wandering down to her mouth.

 

“There's a part of me that realizes she was only doing her job back at that house. She was the least biased against me, and the least enthusiastic about my personal harm— not to mention she’s Amethyst’s soulmate.”

 

Pearl’s eyes went round at that last fact. She had only heard about scrappy, exuberant Amethyst in passing, and had no idea that Garnet’s own friend was mated with Perri Doddard. Pearl kept her mouth shut, though, because it seemed Garnet had more to say.

 

“But part of me also wants to grab her by the neck and just—” Garnet stopped herself with pursed lips, “I want her to pay for what she did, but Amethyst would never forgive me, and you would go to prison, and… well, my feelings may matter to you, but they don't matter to the universe in this situation, do they? Logically is the only way I can look at this that won't drive me insane, so please go call her before it's too late.” Garnet’s voice had grown small by the end of her little speech, and Pearl ached to reach out and touch her, so she rubbed her hand up and down her soulmate’s back soothingly. Her long nails gently scratched along her spine, and eventually Garnet relaxed into her touch, becoming noticeably softer under her hand.

 

“It will be over soon. She’ll do what I ask of her, and then we never have to deal with her again,” Pearl said.

 

Garnet snorted, the sound merely a quick exhale from her nose, “Until Amethyst brings her to our department Christmas party, and I’ve got to try not to punch her in the face over the eggnog table.”

 

The fact that Garnet was making light of the situation was a good sign in Pearl’s eyes. She laughed a bit as she reluctantly pulled her hand from Garnet’s body and reached into her back pocket to fish out her phone.

 

“I’ll call her now, then. And Garnet?”

 

“Hm?”

 

“Not over the eggnog table,” Pearl pleaded.

 

The laugh that bubbled up Garnet’s chest told Pearl that maybe things would be alright after all.

 

* * *

The seedy, dimly lit back alley that Pearl had chosen for her and Perri’s meeting location was at least a  _ little  _ cliche, sure, but waiting in one with one of Garnet’s college hoodies tugged tight around her short hair against the chill of the night felt much less dangerous than meeting in plain sight. What, with the outstanding threats hanging over the heads of every person with a soul connection in the city and the ensuing fear that had permeated the streets since the protest.

 

Pearl did not miss the beefed up security presence on every block downtown, nor did she overlook the helicopters that had been circling the skies for days. It made her meeting with Perri Doddard even riskier, and the hairs on her arms raised even beneath her borrowed— stolen, honestly— hoodie. A chill brushed through her veins and she jumped a bit with it as she paced back and forth down uneven and weathered concrete, avoiding a puddle as deep as her ankles sitting in a pot hole from the rain earlier that day. The dark sat around her shoulders like a light blanket, and she paced in the shadows of the tall buildings on either side of herself until she heard a splash and a quiet, but angry, curse.

 

When she turned around, Perri was shaking water off of her leg, now drenched up to mid calf after stepping in the puddle that Pearl had actively avoided. Her blonde eyebrows were drawn down tightly over her nose as she muttered under her breath about the disarray of the alleys downtown. Something along the lines of hacking into the mayor's personal computers and finding something incriminating to threaten him with lest he get someone out there to handle the construction. Pearl hid a smirk behind her thin fingers and cleared her throat to draw the other woman's attention.

 

“Hm? Oh, yes, Pearl. Your surveillance footage request. Here you go,” Peridot said, handing over a plain black flash drive in the palm of her small hand, Amethyst's name sitting boldly beneath her thumb. Pearl would find her adorable had their history not been so tainted already.

 

“Why did you make a copy before you wiped them? What would I do with this?” Pearl asked, reaching out and relieving her of it anyway. “And how do I know that you don't have copies yourself that you won't use to blackmail me?”

 

Perri’s green eyes rolled impressively hard and then narrowed to catlike slits, “While I appreciate your clear understanding of my capabilities and intelligence, because that would be the smart thing to do seeing as that we are on opposite sides of things, I am… disappointed in the little faith you have in our temporary alliance. I am no double crosser.”

 

“Could have fooled me. Wasn't it double crossing when you helped kidnap Garnet?” Pearl felt her eyes flash and her stomach turn with something deep and  _ resentful _ , and she squelched it before she did anything she would regret.

 

“I’m sorry, I didn't know that soulmates were off limits,” Perri’s voice was cutting in its sarcasm, and Pearl’s blood ran hot.

 

“I don't see how you can join them when you're mated yourself. You better pray nothing happens to Amethyst in retaliation for any foul play on your part.” Pearl’s words hung chilling and low in the air between them for a long moment.

 

“Is that a threat?” Perri asked, unaffected, “If so, I was mistaken in trusting your judgement, Pearl. Do you think that if I have been working alongside Rose, I have any attachment to this soul connection? I have never met this Amethyst, but our mating will likely not occur before I sever the bond myself.”

 

Pearl was positive that the shock jolting through her body was palpable. To even consider, to  _ imagine, _ the thought of purposely severing her own bond was— heart wrenching. “You don't mean that,” she said, voice now small in the vast alley. All of her earlier confidence had fallen away like shed skin.

 

“You have to see the  _ insanity _ —”

 

Perri cut her off with a raised hand, “Pearl, we have been associates for this business transaction, and this business transaction  _ only _ ,” she paused and her words sunk slowly into Pearl’s addled mind, “our concern for each other ends here. Hopefully we do not cross paths again because this is as far as my kindness goes for us, though I have to say I would not take pleasure in hurting you should the time come— small consolation, I know.”

 

Pearl stood in place, her feet feeling like tons of led beneath her body. 

 

At her silence, Perri nodded one time, curt and professional, before she turned on her heel and disappeared the way that she came.

 

The flash drive felt as volatile and dangerous as a ticking bomb in her fingers, and she let her hand fall open so that it clattered to the wet ground. With a heavy swallow, her eyes followed it as it bounced once— and the heel of her shoe shattered it into three pieces. A second stomp damaged it even further, and the third was for her own frustration to be let out into the night, a strangled cry breaking from between her lips with the exertion. She swept the pieces over into the puddle for added effect and turned around to exit the alleyway opposite her new enemy.

 

Pearl had forgone the bus and opted for walking back to campus. She  _ really  _ wanted to go back to Garnet’s apartment, but the feeling that things were still tense between them lingered even through their bond. As she walked with her head down and hood retired to rest around her shoulders, the wind whipping relentlessly through her hair and getting it all in her eyes, she considered Perri’s words.

 

_...our mating will likely not occur before I sever the bond myself. _

 

Her steps slowed until she was stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, an annoyed passerby checking her shoulder as he quickly maneuvered to get around her instead of running into her back.

 

With a deep breath, she reached out for Garnet mentally and continued walking until she made it all the way up to her dorm room. Her roommates must have gone out for the night because the small apartment housing they resided in was empty. Trudging to her bedroom, she kicked off her wet shoes and stripped down to her underwear through a deep feeling of exhaustion settling over her.

 

Finally, as she was nearing the edges of sleep, she felt Garnet reach back out with a potency that jolted her awake. If she had to describe the sensation, it was that she could  _ feel _ Garnet’s mind present in her own much stronger than ever before. If she focused, which she did, she could hear her.

 

_ I waited up for you. _

 

Pearl’s breath caught— hearing Garnet’s voice as if she were whispering right on the inside of her ear was a bit jarring, but _amazing_ , she realized.

 

“I thought you'd maybe want some space,” Pearl whispered, unsure of whether or not she should speak aloud or in her head.

 

_ I never want space from you, Pearl. _

 

Then, after a beat,  _ How did your meeting with Perri go? _

 

Pearl let a loud sigh crash through her lips as she threw her arms over her eyes, the insides of her crooked elbows throwing her world into the dark as she recalled the conversation at the mere mention of it.

 

_ Yikes… that bad, huh? _

 

“You… you could see that?” Pearl asked, slowly peeling her arms away from her face to look up and past the ceiling in wonder.

 

_ It’s foggy, kind of like a dream you can barely touch on, but I got the gist. I wish Amethyst would speak to me so I could warn her. _

 

“She's still angry with you?”

 

_ I don't know…  _ Even Garnet’s mental voice sounded like a sigh,  _ we've not talked nearly as much and we certainly don't spar anymore. Maybe she just needs space.  _

 

“Like the space you didn't want me to give you?”

 

Pearl’s mind was quiet for a while, and she wondered if Garnet was still there, still listening right in the back of her mind.

 

_ Maybe you're right. I’ll talk to her tomorrow. Maybe we’ll have a lead on where the hell Rose went, too. _

 

_ “ _ Speaking of leads, my mom’s are planning on going after all of them themselves… I asked them if you could help. I think partnering the CPDU with their knowledge of Rose and the drug could be helpful— and I know what catching her means to you.”

 

Another long pause, and then, so quietly that Pearl could barely hear it,  _ Thank you.  _

 

They sat in comfortable silence for a long time, enjoying the company of each other even from miles away. This, Pearl thought, was infinitely better than phone calls listening to the each other's breathing on the other line. If she thought that had been romantic before, this left that old gesture in the dust. 

 

_ I’m glad you destroyed the flash drive. _

 

“Really? I thought about it, on my way to campus, that maybe I should have kept it so someone at the CPDU could do their tech thing and find a lead,” Pearl turned on her side to face the wall and smiled as Garnet’s laugh echoed through her head.

 

_ I don't think that's quite how it works, but I appreciate your concern. _

 

Pearl’s smile drooped a bit as she recalled Perri’s earlier words, and then Garnet’s voice was right back in that spot just behind her ears, just as soothing and low as it was in person  _ That’s not going to happen to us, Pearl. I won’t let it. _

 

“You can’t promise that. It was so close to happening  _ twice _ before—” Pearl’s words caught in her throat as she fought back the wavering in her voice. She was too exhausted to cry.

 

_ But it didn’t. We’re okay. Don’t cry, Pearl. _

 

Pearl sniffed and ran the heel of her hand up her nose to catch an stray liquid that might have started running there. She heard a tear hit the pillow beneath her head and blinked quickly to keep more from falling.  
  


Garnet was right. 

  
That was probably as close as either of them would ever come to having their bond severed. If the universe was going to do that to them, it probably would have happened already. Rationalizing it to herself, she felt her heart slow down dramatically, and she released a heavy breath she had not realized was trapped in her lungs.

 

“Okay— okay, I’m fine. I should have gone back to your place. I don’t want to be alone tonight,” Pearl murmured.

 

_ Do you want me to come get you? _

 

“No,” Pearl whined, knowing that she probably sounded extremely petulant, but too tired to care or stop herself.

 

_ Right… I’m on my way, love. _

 

Pearl couldn’t help the fond smile that spread across her lips at how well Garnet saw through her, soulmate telepathy or no.

 

“Thank you, Garnet.”

 

_ I love you, Pearl. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the wait on this story. I had been so invested and caught up in my pearlnet volleyball college AU that this fell a bit to the wayside. Half of this chapter has been finished for a couple of months, but I finally sat down and cranked out the rest. Thanks so much for the wait, if you're still along for the ride.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and much love!
> 
> (come find me on tumblr: bakedgarnet.tumblr.com!!)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm three chapters deep into this story, but I honestly couldn't wait until it was finished to post it, so here's the first one.
> 
> Let me know what you think in a comment, or hit me up on my tumblr (bakedgarnet.tumblr.com) or drop any questions/theories/whatever else. Thanks for reading, and much love!
> 
> (side note: i'm using "bad Pearl" in this context very loosely. it's not bad that she's an activist for the rights of others, moreso bad in the eyes of the law and the society this AU is based in)


End file.
